How to Understand That a Pervert Just Called You
There are many cases where you may need to match a phone number with a real person’s name. You may have received a message from an unknown number. You may have seen a call from an unlisted contact keep appearing on your partner’s home screen . Whatever the case, here are some of the best ways to identify the name of the person behind the number and find out how and why they are calling you.
How to tell if it’s a real number
There are many apps and online services that can give you an additional phone number, such as Google Voice and TextFree . Some of them will add a little note at the bottom of text messages, like “This message was sent using [app name]”, but not all of them. If a person uses a nonce or a third-party app to contact you, it will be harder to figure out who they are, but it can tell you if their motivation is questionable. Your first task is to determine if they are doing it.
The first step is to save the number as something like Mystery Caller. If you have an iPhone, open a text thread with a new contact. If you have the option to use iMessage instead of texting them, they are using a real iCloud account, which is a strong indication that this is their real number. If you get the option to only send them text messages, it doesn’t automatically mean you’re dealing with someone who uses a third-party messaging service; they could just have android.
We’ll get to your reverse lookup options shortly. Some reverse lookups can tell you if a person is using a real phone number supported by a mobile carrier, but this becomes risky due to how widespread these services are and the different terms used to describe mobile numbers, prepaid numbers etc. If you feel brave, block your number using the old correct *67 and then call the person. In some cases, a third party vendor will play a sound that says something like “Hi. Please state your name after the beep and Google Voice will attempt to connect you.” If you don’t hear anything like this after one or two rings, it could be a signal that the person is using their real number.
How to do a reverse phone number lookup
There are many reverse phone number lookup sites on the Internet that you can use to get some information about your mystery contact. You may have to pay money here. For example, Whitepages offers a reverse phone lookup . I just entered my real phone number and it correctly showed my hometown where the number is registered and noted that it was a number associated with a mobile phone. When I clicked the button asking me to reveal the owner’s name, I was offered to pay $9.99 for a single report, or $2.50 a month for regular access to the reports.
I then entered a phone number that I know is a Google Voice number. It didn’t show me any location data (although the area code that a third party user can select is in Manhattan) and identified it as “landline”. If you’re receiving messages from an unknown number that comes back as a landline, you can assume it’s a third party app.
More detailed searches like Intelius can give you a lot of information about someone for a fee, but don’t always return results for third party apps. If your contact is using their real phone number, you will be able to get the information, typically for about a dollar for a one-time report (although Intelius may add a service fee of about $3.99).
Use the apps you already have
That’s where things get fun. Using reverse lookup tools is effective in many cases, but there are other methods, especially if you don’t want to pay, don’t trust those sites, or aren’t getting hits. Social media is a great tool here.
We’ve already told you that you can use Snapchat to find out who’s calling or texting you by storing the person’s number and then going to your friend suggestions, where you’ll see them at the bottom of the list (if they have a Click). When you use Snapchat, be aware that it will automatically fill in your contact name for them, so you may see them as “Mystery Caller”. By looking at their username, you can figure out who they are. (This is also true for Clubhouse and Signal. You’ll see their contact name instead of their real name, but at least you’ll know they’re contacting you on the number they use for their social media.)
Instagram used to suggest people whose number you saved, but now it’s not as reliable. TikTok is great because it will prompt you to follow people you have in your contacts and you can click on their profile (with the view your profile option disabled) to see if you recognize them, but be careful here. TikTok has also started a reverse contact suggestion, which means your target can get an offer to follow you . TikTok shows users why each suggestion to follow appears. You will notice that some of your sentences say “From your contacts”. In some cases, the sentence will say: “You are in their contacts.” If you’re looking for, say, someone who flirts with your friend or significant other, you can pass yourself off like this.
Finally, GOAT: CashApp. You can enter a phone number into CashApp and it will display the associated account if the person has one. If they have one, you won’t see your contact name for them, since most of the time people use their real names (or initials) on finance-related apps.