Perhaps you've been receiving prank calls at all hours of the night. Or maybe your children are being harassed by school bullies who call their mobile phone to threaten them.

Maybe your elderly parents have been receiving suspicious phone calls and you think a con artist may be trying to sucker them out of their money. Or perhaps a telemarketer keeps calling again and again even after you've told them to stop. Or maybe your boyfriend or husband has been getting calls from an unfamiliar number and he claims he doesn't know who it belongs to. Could it be his secret lover?

Whatever your exact reasons and motivations may be, the best way to put a stop to these types of unwelcome phone calls is with a reverse number lookup. Reverse lookups allow you to find out personal details about the owner of any phone number. When you sign up for a reverse lookup service and start running searches you'll receive all sorts of information about the owner of the phone line including:

Their name

Their address

Any previous addresses

Details on their phone line status and connection

Details about their neighbors and relatives

Details on their income and home value

A map to their location

Just think about helpful this information can be to you. You can immediately find out who has been making prank phone calls and make them stop. You can determine if the person calling your parents is really who he claims to be. And you can put your mind to rest that your husband isn't cheating on you after all.

Obviously you can see how valuable a reverse number lookup service can be. Now let's talk about how you can go about tracing numbers yourself at home.

That's right, you can do it yourself right from home. There's no need for an expensive private investigator. All you need is a computer with an internet connection and you're ready to go.

Simply go to a website that offers reverse number searches, enter your number and hit search. In just seconds you'll receive a full report with all sorts of identifying information.

Now there are some services that let you run reverse lookups for free, but I'd be careful with them. Remember the old saying, "You get what you pay for." Free reverse directories often give you inaccurate or outdated results. Sometimes their reports give you information that is years old and that will only send you on a wild goose chase with incorrect information.

You're much better off signing up for a paid reverse phone directory. They only cost a few bucks and once you're a member you can run as many searches as you want. And not only are they more accurate but they guarantee their results. Paid directories are continuously updated so that inaccurate listings are deleted. This takes time and costs money, which is why they can't offer the service for free.

Another benefit of signing up for a paid directory is the ability to trace a mobile phone number. The free directories only have access to standard landline numbers, so if the number you need details on is a mobile number they're useless.