Google Can Tell You Who's Calling

Post by **jones jones** » Sun May 25, 2008 7:03 am

Ever have an unknown-to-you number show up on your caller ID over and over again and want to know who it is? Short of, well, answering the phone and asking the caller, your best bet is to ask Google. Just enter it in this format: (123) 456-7890, i.e. with the area code in parentheses followed by a space and the subsequent sets of numbers separated by a hyphen. Ordinarily Google ignores punctuation, but when you enter it like this Google recognizes it as a phone number and does a reverse phone book lookup. If it finds the number in its phone book, it'll tell you who it thinks it belongs to.

If that fails, Google will return its usual search results, but that can be just as useful, because Google will show you web pages that contain that string of numbers. If the number belongs to a business the business' site might appear. Also, several sites like 800Notes and WhoCallsMe? are dedicated to cataloging mysterious calls and if your mystery number has shown up on many other people's caller IDs, chances are some of them have logged the calls on one of those sites, and maybe even discovered who the caller is. Google indexes several of these sites and they'll often appear at the top of your search results. If Google seems to be showing you pages that contain only some of the numbers you entered, or the numbers in the wrong order, put them inside quotation marks.

Finally, if none of the above give you answers, Google can at least tell you what geographical region the number belongs to: Just punch in the area code by itself and Google will tell you where it's from.

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sun May 25, 2008 7:28 am

Ive not had much luck with reverse look ups or any of those services.

Most of them require a fee anyway.

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Sun May 25, 2008 7:38 am

I've always heard it's not healthy to be backed up. :-3

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sun May 25, 2008 7:44 am

Accountable;873999 wrote: I've always heard it's not healthy to be backed up. :-3

Please see the fiber thread in health and wellness.

CARLA · Post by **CARLA** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:27 am

I could care less about who called. I actually decided a few month ago to get rid of all the extra's on my landline and haven't missed them for one minute just a cost I didn't want anymore.

The extras come free of charge on my Cell phone and I still don't care who is calling me, I have better things to do..:-6

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:29 am

CARLA;874064 wrote: I could care less about who called. I actually decided a few month ago to get rid of all the extra's on my landline and haven't missed them for one minute just a cost I didn't want anymore.

The extras come free of charge on my Cell phone and I still don't care who is calling me, I have better things to do..:-6

Sassy !

Dweedle Dee · Post by **Dweedle Dee** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:36 am

Appropo of nothing, I've never used, much less owned, a cellular phone.

Weird, huh?

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:09 am

Dweedle Dee;874067 wrote: Appropo of nothing, I've never used, much less owned, a cellular phone.

Weird, huh?

Freak !

Post by **jones jones** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:23 am

Dweedle Dee;874067 wrote: Appropo of nothing, I've never used, much less owned, a cellular phone.

Weird, huh?

jeez that is so cool!

wish i could say that!

along-for-the-ride · Post by **along-for-the-ride** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:10 pm

Is there anything Google can't find?

freetobeme · Post by **freetobeme** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:02 pm

Nomad;874004 wrote: Please see the fiber thread in health and wellness.

Liquorice is good for that, I send away to the U.k. for the good stuff:wah: then I can dip it in kali

================================

join me at the Friendship Inn

http://gardentalk.proboards91.com/index.cgi

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:43 pm

CARLA;874064 wrote: I could care less about who called. I actually decided a few month ago to get rid of all the extra's on my landline and haven't missed them for one minute just a cost I didn't want anymore.

The extras come free of charge on my Cell phone and I still don't care who is calling me, I have better things to do..:-6
I haven't had a landline since '02.

:eek: Damn that post looks old.

Cow Patty · Post by **Cow Patty** » Thu May 29, 2008 9:48 am

Won't work for me, with my local phone service it will say Unknown name, unknown number. With no # I have nothing to google.

9 out of 10 times the unknown calls are just sales people anyway.