After moving into a new town or neighborhood, you may have the tendency to feel incomplete. If you do not know anyone in town, you end up being complete stranger, left feeling like an intimidated new kid on the first day of high school. As time progresses, residents of the neighborhood begin to open up to you, making you feel a bit more welcome. Eventually, associates at the job are more receptive. You establish a group of your own that gathers faithfully in the break room. Some of them you have even grown close to; close enough to label friends.

After a while, things begin to change. One of your friends in the circle becomes a cause for concern. Perhaps his behavior has grown erratic; he has become suddenly depressed and his actions are strange. While some may think you are overreacting, your need for worry is genuine.

By way of national and local news, we are witnessing more senseless violence on the job. More innocent victims’ lives are being claimed by co-workers, people they casually associated with on a daily basis. Once the story hits the press, we typically find that the suspect had a shaky past, one that could have been thoroughly looked into with an employee or criminal background check.

When suspicions arise, you may need to take the situation in your own hands. Checking into your friend’s prior record before getting too involved in the relationship is certainly a wise idea, especially in consideration of the times in which we live.

Contrary to popular beliefs, you do not have to be a seasoned private investigator to conduct an individual’s background check. One of the best resources to find out anything about anyone has to be the internet. On the web exists a large amount of tools to help you learn more about your new friends. In fact, the mission of finding information on anyone is performed with more efficiency on the internet than any other platform. These online searches are fast and fairly accurate. With enough of the basic information, you will be able to find out practically anything about new friends, including criminal records and even driving records!

When you are looking to find out about anyone, even strangers, the internet gives you many options. Net Detective is the most popular people search engine online. This five star ranked service is frequently used by law enforcement agencies all over the world. Anything about anyone can be accessed through criminal records, family history files, birth and death certificates, adoption records, social security numbers, telephone numbers, email domains, and much more.

There are many other great services available that allow you to find out about anyone. With in depth information, background checks, and criminal records, you can rest assured that your new friends have no dark pasts…or that if they do, you can steer clear of the danger.

When you are conducting a background check on a new friend, you certainly hope to be proven wrong about your doubts. However, it is best to remain on the safe side. By using a little web savvy, you can instantly jump online and find out about anyone who strikes you as suspicious. The tools on the internet are very effective in helping people search the past of a new friend.

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Got a phone number but don't know who it is? Maybe you've seen strange numbers showing up on your teenager's cell phone bill. Or maybe you picked up a number to call about an investment - but you suspect a scam. Or maybe you found a mysterious number in your wife or husband's things. For dozens of reasons, we find ourselves with a telephone number - but no name.

You're itching to find out who it is. Not just for curiosity's sake. The safety of your family or the security of your bank account could be at stake. You need a way to discover just whose phone number you have.

There's good news. You've got options. I'm a professional writer and researcher. I've discovered four different ways you can find out who's hiding behind any phone number. You can:

- Call, pretending to be someone else
- Look it up in a published crisscross directory
- Befriend (or trick) someone at the phone company
- Go online and search

Let's see what's involved with each approach and discover when they work best...

Call the Number

It's the simplest thing you can do. Pick up the phone and call. But pretend to be someone else to avoid recognition. When they answer, ask for a person with an unusual name not likely to be there. Say something like "Hello, is Lilly Becky there? No? Are you absolutely sure? Well, who am I talking to then?" Be a little forceful. Even sound angry, as if you think they're lying to you. This approach can rattle the other person and make them reveal their identity.

Avoid this one if you're not comfortable acting. And make sure you don't call from a number that can be traced back to you!

Look in a Crisscross Directory

Crisscross Directories have been around since the late 1800s. They're like phone directories. But they organize their listings by phone number, or street address, instead of name. These directories are still available in print form even though most of the information is also now available by computer.

Such cross-references are primarily designed for business use. Usually, sales departments rely on them to conduct direct marketing, build lists of sales leads and gather business intelligence.

The drawback is that they're expensive - costing in the hundreds of dollars or more. Still, you can usually find copies in your library, especially for the local area you live in. If you're looking beyond your own town, you probably won't be able to use the free version in the library.

Get an Inside Connection

Having a buddy on the inside of the phone company was classic approach for TV detectives. If you recall the Rockford Files or Mannix or any other old private eye show, they were forever pulling over to a pay phone and calling their friend, Ginger or Susie or Maggie, at the telephone company. The friend would dutifully give them whatever information the PI needed to pursue the case.

Interestingly, this method actually works - even if it's a little on the shady side. If you know someone at the phone company, you can probably talk them into helping.

Unfortunately, they probably won't help you once a week like on the TV shows. At some point your friend's better judgment will take over. You'll be left with nothing but numbers again. (Makes you wonder, doesn't it, just what the detective had that you don't)

21st Century Answers - The Internet Search Solution

When it comes to finding out who's hiding behind a phone number, the best way I've found is online search. Yet, search takes time. And not finding what you want quickly gets very frustrating.

To help, a number of businesses exist to make reverse phone searching quicker and easier. These businesses have already found the best sources for reverse phone searching. They take you directly to the databases that have the information you need. You can find out names, addresses, and much more, starting with just a phone number.

Some of these Reverse Phone Lookup services are free. The better ones cost a little. Quality always does, in my experience.

If, in your case, it's not that important to get accurate information fast, then give the free services a shot. They're mostly supported by pay for performance advertising, like Adsense, which doesn't earn them much. That means the free services rarely have the money to invest either in buying data access or in creating more usable interfaces.

In my case, as a professional, getting quality information quickly is important. I pay the small fee and get reliable information.

But, even if I didn't write for a living and were just casually looking up phone numbers from time to time, I'd still go with a paid database service. The cost is minimal. Often a small, one-time fee covers one to three years or even longer. If I only looked up a number once or twice a year, it would still be worth it in time saved.

Final Word

As important as it can be, finding out personal information with just a phone number used to be nearly impossible. Today it can be quick and easy. I've found four approaches that work, but one proved the simplest and most effective. It's using a quality, reverse-phone-search service online.

In a future article I'll talk about some of the reasons reverse phone search can be so important in these times. You might be surprised to hear how it not only can satisfy curiosity, it could even save your life.

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