In real life an investigator will handle a telephone handset a million times more than he will ever handle a firearm. So in this series of articles we will examine the tools every PI must have in order to conduct successful telephone investigations. Reverse phone number databases, telephone trap lines and blind lines or caller ID spoof cards are all tools every investigator should have.

Reverse Phone Number Databases:

Before you can use the phone you need a phone number. Or you may already have a number but need to know the customer name and address of that number. This is where the telephone number data base comes into effect.

Every investigator should have access to databases that will return a customer name and address (CNA) from a non published or unlisted phone number. These database services will also have information on telephone numbers. They may be able to provide you with an unlisted phone number from a just a name or just an address. They also may be able to supply you with a cellular or wireless number from just a name or address.

Today on the Internet there are literally thousands of companies that offer this service. Some of these companies will only provide the information to lawyers, licensed private investigators , collection agencies or other licensed businesses with a legitimate need for this information. Other companies do not, all they require is a valid credit card. You submit your order and the information is returned via email a few minutes later.

Not all of these services are the same and not all have access to the same information. Some will have up to date information and some will have old outdated data. So do your research and homework first and try to establish a long term working relationship with your information broker.

There are also other ways to obtain reverse phone number information. You can call the number and using a pretext, perhaps in conjunction with a caller ID spoof card, and trick the person that answers into revealing their information. Likewise you might email the target or snail mail the physical address with a pretext and include a trap line number. When the subject calls the trap number their information will be revealed through automatic number identification even if they have caller ID blocked.

Obviously you can use your imagination and apply a reverse phone number search to many routine investigations such as skip tracing, current employment locates and infidelity investigations.

Our next article in this series will examine caller ID spoof cards and their use in routine investigations.

Before hiring a private investigation service be sure to perform your due diligence. Make sure the PI is considered an expert in telephone investigations. Check to see if they offer a variety of telephone investigative services such as reverse phone searches, trap lines, caller Id and even cell phone forensics.

You want to put your investigation into the hands of an expert in every area of telephone investigations.

Be careful of instant online searches that promise the world for a one time low fee. This is impossible. If it seems too good to be true it's never going to be real. Its going to be a scam.