How to Find Someone's Phone Number Online

Need to call a friend? Lost the number? If you have access to the internet, your in luck. In the United States, phone numbers are usually public record. While most of these records include mostly landlines, even people's cellular phone numbers are becoming easier to access nowadays.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• The internet

It helps to know the person's full name..

1. Make sure that you know how to spell the name of the person in question before you search for them and also, if possible, know their full name. Do you have any idea how many Joe Smiths there are in a single U.S. city, let alone the entire United States or even the entire world? However, if you know beforehand that the person you are trying to find is called Joseph Tiberias Smith, it will be easier for you to track them down.

2. Gather as much additional details about the person you are trying to find ahead of time. The more details you know, such as age, current address and birthday, the easier you will be able to narrow down your searches.

3. Go to sites such as www.zabasearch.com or www.intelius.com to search for a person's phone number if that person lives in the United States. These websites provide basic details such as a person's name, age, current address, phone number and potential relatives for free. For an extra fee, they allow you access to more advanced background checks, provided on either a one-time or recurring monthly basis. It is up to you to decide if you want to pay for more detailed searches. If you are trying to find someone's phone number, the free services should suffice.

4. Go to sites that allow you to find both U.S. and international phone numbers. Go to www.whitepages.com to find U.S. or Canadian phone numbers, for example. www.bt.com or www.192.com will locate phone numbers in the United Kingdom.

5. Search for the person you are trying to find on a search engine like Google. Nowadays, where most business and networking around the world are conducted online, people often publish their resumes on the internet or provide their contact information on a personal, promotional website.

6. Search for the person you are trying to locate on social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace. This will not only allow you to find more details on the person in general, but they also often publish their phone numbers on such pages, if they are made viewable to the general public.