You reached for the cell phone, praying that nobody is hurt, and say, "Hello?" You were met with silence, a dial tone or a giggle. 1,000,000 thoughts flash through your mental : Was this just some kid having a giggle at your expense? Could it be an angry neighbour with a bone to choose, or something more major: like a stalker or burglar? Few things were way more exasperating than a practical joke call. And they can become downright horrifying if they continue for a few nights straight.

The feelings of helplessness and fear due to practical joke cell phone calls had even led some folks to violence! Perhaps at one time, you were on the other end of that practical joke call. Could you remember calling a random home and asking if their chiller was on? Weren't you hiding behind the automated anonymity that your cell phone supplied? Would it not be a relief to discover a way to stop the harassment? Perhaps it's simply a kid having fun, or perhaps it's more significant than that. But it's your cell phone after all - your privacy - being attacked. For so long as there were cell phones, jokers and bad guys had used them to threaten and annoy their victims with almost no chance of being caught.

Only till recently had technology caught up to these practical joke callers and given them some pause by making Caller ID and made them available to the general public. However in numerous cases, cell phones had made a new and convenient way for practical joke callers to continue to pester you without giving away their identity.

Nowadays, technology had permitted us to strip away that cloud of anonymity and put a name to the number that identifies that practical joke caller! By trying the web's capability to straight away scan millions of public records in some databases, you could discover the name, address, and plenty of other engaging facts about the person calling you at 12am in the morning.

The utilization of cell phone number trace technology and the scores of official records available through these sites used to be the definition of non-public investigators and officials of the law.

But today, you can obtain access to this information on many sites, customarily for a small fee. This had helped level the field in the area of private security and inquiries. There are a lot of other reasons why one may visit a cell phone number trace site to find the person behind the cell phone, like researching unknown numbers on your bill, looking up who shows up on your "missed calls" list, or even digging into suspected infidelity of a partner. However for good old confidence, the bringing to justice of aggravating practical joke phone callers ranks right near the head of that list.

Now, imagine being able to reply to the cell phone the second time with, "Hello Tom. I'd stop calling if I were you. I'd hate to get the police involved." Nothing like a good night's sleep.