Reverse number lookup

VIRII · 9 Jan 2007 at 19:07

To save a mate of mine blowing a few hundred on a PI does anyone know a method of finding an address from either a landline or mobile phone number ?

The PI seems to be able to "gather the info" for a fat fee so I assume he has someone who works in a call center for a phone company or something as I can't find anyway to reverse look up a phone number.

The last time I traced anyone via the net was a few years ago and I knew the persons name and roughly where they lived which made it easy. In this case my mate has 2 phone numbers and a first name and a rough location but it isn't coming up with anything.

In the US such lookups are very simple but here it appears not. I guess he could trawl the electoral register but what a chore.

VIRII · 9 Jan 2007 at 19:14

cleanbluesky said:
Don't BT have a similar service to this?

Anyway, who needs their legs broken?

No-one

It is purely hypothetical.

VIRII · 9 Jan 2007 at 19:15

ste_bla said:
reverse lookup is illegal in the uk except for the police*

*i think!

I think you are right, however who would have access to the relevent details?
Could someone at say CPW use their terminal to reverse look up a mobile number?

VIRII · 9 Jan 2007 at 19:18

Abraham said:
it's illegal for anyone to do it without being licenced to do so
there are old releases from when it wasnt illegal, but these are obviously out of date and as such the number you're looking for may have changed hands

Yup the landline probably has but the mobile might not have and it would give me a starting point / surname - if it works for mobiles.

Anyway hypothetically speaking how would you go about tracing someone from their mobile or landline number knowing the village they live in and their first name?

VIRII · 9 Jan 2007 at 19:34

SO the chances are that the PI has a range of people in various jobs who he bungs cash to for the odd sneaky reverse lookup?

VIRII · 10 Jan 2007 at 08:19

dmpoole said:
Highly illegal in the UK although during the mid to late 90's a firm called UK INFO released a cd with reverse searching and it was taken off the market.
Apparently they used old catalogue records.

I still have that CD but it is not of much use as it is so out of date :/
A GPS logger looks like a cheaper bet and a few door to door enquiries.

VIRII · 10 Jan 2007 at 08:59

Tomsk said:
You could just phone up like this

Considered it already.

VIRII · 10 Jan 2007 at 17:09

boycee said:
Not that i'd condone doing the above, but it's hypothetical isn't it.

Chris.

It is hypothetical. I'm just interested in how these PI's get the information. I'm also interested as to why it is so simple in the US and so illegal here.