In the earliest days of my internet experience, I remember being able to do a web search for a phone number and sometimes actually find something useful. That said, this niche has long been dominated by some of the fakest, most scammy, bullshit sites on the web. From calling themselves “free” when they are not, to the fake “searching”, “sifting through results”, “correlating records” wait screens that are much like the deceptive, manipulative, and nontransparent airline industry, to the mentally manipulative exclamation point in the red warning triangle to tease you that there might be criminal records.
Why is this area of the web so scammy?
Who made it like this?
Has anyone tried to fix it?
Is there a any site out there that can actually do a reverse lookup and isn’t a cesspool of popups, pay gates, and fake loading screens?
It’s actual enshittification of public information. In the USA you can use whitepages.com. Also, the regional telephone company should be able to provide this.
Whitepages still wants me to pay for that names/addresses.
I just did a search and got name+address free.
Name or phone number search?
Name will typically get you address. But not a phone number search. And you have to pay for the phone number if you did address search.
I just searched up a family member’s number. Got name, approximate age, and address.
Have you visited whitepages.com lately?
I did today, but I don’t go anywhere online without an ad blocker. There is a bunch of BS services on there for criminal background check etc, but I was able to quickly get what I needed in one shot.
Fascinating because it behaves for me as if intelus owns it.
ETA:
Ok. I figured out where we were different. I was only doing reverse searches of known land lines. Once I put in a mobile number or tried looking up the same person by name it all went sideways.
Ahhh. That makes sense. I don’t really even know that many elderly people with a landline. The few I do know who have one are still connected by internet, and I really don’t understand how they can call it a landline.