Trace a Mobile Phone Number

There are several reasons why you would want to trace a mobile phone number. Perhaps you are getting harassing or annoying phone calls from an unlisted number and you want to find out who is behind those calls. Whatever your motivation, it is perfectly possible to trace a cell phone number, but the process is not quite as easy as one would hope.

Trace a Mobile Phone Number

What exactly does it mean when someone wants to trace a phone number? Well, this is when you take just the phone number and extract all sorts of information from that number. By tracing the number, it is possible to find out not only the name of the person to whom the number is registered, but also his or her physical billing address, service provider and base location.

This is decidedly different from using GPS to track a cell phone. This latter technique is more to find the exact real-time coordinates of a particular handset, whereas tracing a mobile phone number entails finding out more information about the account.

No Central Directory

When it comes to most (listed) landlines, it is usually possible to do a free reverse phone lookup using a variety of different websites and 411 services. By providing a number, they'll tell you the same information you would find in a regular directory or phone book. Unfortunately, this same information isn't as readily available for mobile phones.

In fact, there is no official cell phone directory that is freely available to the public. Individual service providers, like Telus Mobility, may have a full directory of their subscribers, but there isn't one that encompasses all nationwide users. Furthermore, these numbers are not publicly listed like how landlines are.

Without a central directory, it can be a little challenging to get accurate phone number searches.

Finding Cell Phone Service Provider Information

So, if there is no official directory, what can you expect when you trace a mobile phone number? Well, there are a number of websites on the Internet that will freely provide you with some basic information when you give them a cell phone number. The appropriately named trace-a-phone-number.com, for example, will give you the city, province/state, and country where the cell phone is registered.

This does not necessarily reflect where the actual phone is physically located, nor does it indicate the mailing address of the owner. Instead, the city and state information is reflective of the primary relay station for that phone's service provider. For Fido users in Vancouver, for example, the location will come up as one of Vancouver's suburbs (New Westminster).

Furthermore, Fone Finder (www.fonefinder.net) can also provide the carrier, city and state/province of a given area code and exchange; however, due to number portability, sometimes these records can be inaccurate.

Using this basic information, you can better narrow down the location of the mobile phone user, but you'd largely get almost the same data based on just the area code. Cell phone service providers don't publicly release much more information than this, possibly because of security and privacy concerns. These are the same concerns that people have about retrieving text messages online of phones that do not belong to you.

Paid Services

If you are highly motivated to trace a mobile phone number, the only real solution is to pay someone to do it. Using your favorite search engine, you'll find countless websites that offer this kind of service, but their level of legitimacy and privacy will vary widely. As such, you should definitely proceed with extreme caution.

If you choose to pay for a search, your best bet is to go with a company that offers a "no-hit/no-fee" guarantee, which simply means that if they cannot locate current information regarding the number you need researched, you will receive a full refund.

In order to obtain the most accurate information, you'll want to find a company that utilizes real Private Investigators, and does not simply perform a database query. Database query companies such as Intelius or Net Detective will not have the most accurate and up to date information available.

Phone Search Central (www.phonesearchcentral.com) is one such source for paid reverse phone number lookups both for UK, Canadian and US based mobile and landline numbers that utilizes real Private Investigators as to opposed to databases.

Although the majority of "free"online lookup services are pretty useless, one such free website called Zabasearch (www.zabasearch.com)  is actually very reliable, but only when searching with someone's first and last name in order to locate their current address.

It is also important that you shop around for the best deal, because the pricing on these sites also varies widely. Some may be as cheap as $15 for an individual reverse cell phone lookup while others charge up to $200 to trace a mobile phone number. NationwideSearch, for example, has a fee of $189 for a cell phone reverse lookup.

The old addage "You get what you pay for" holds true in this field, and the typical going rate for having a real private investigator perform a one time guaranteed accurate phone search varies between $40 and $80 dollars. Most companies offering phone number reversals for the $10 to $25 range are simply running database queries, and not actually "investigating" who may own an actual phone number on your behalf.

The data that they provide includes the cell phone owner's name and full address, as well as the possibility of finding out their social security number, past and present phone numbers, 15 years of address history, driver's license number, date of birth, and more. There are certainly legal ramifications to such an investigation, so do be careful.