You are not going to know anything about a number if it is not coming up on your caller ID box. That goes without saying. What you have to think about when an unknown number comes up and keeps calling is who that person may be, but also, if you are even getting the entire picture. Caller ID is hit or miss, and there are some tricks around it. Whatever the case, you do want to do what you can to find out more.

The number on your caller ID box can be either from a cell phone or a landline phone. You may not know right away which is which, but you can tell a little about the origin by looking at the first six digits of the number. The first three are the area code, and that is a number you can look up online. That will tell you a state or an area of a state. The prefix, or the next three numbers, are going to tell you city, or part of a city.

That works well for some information, but that is not always going to be the entire story, and is often not enough. When that happens, you have a few options to decide with which type of number you are dealing. You can use the white and yellow pages online to see if the number is found through their reverse phone search. If not, you have unlisted landline or a mobile number. That mobile number is harder to find, but it can happen.

You can use the search engines to search for possible mobile numbers, and you can also see if you can get that number to come up through professional networks as well. You should also look into the meaning of caller ID spoofing so you are aware that these numbers may not be coming to you from that actual number after all. That is when searching is tough.

Don't give up if you seem to be stuck after going through all of the above options. Use a site that will search a phone number for you. There are special sites on the Internet that can help you find more about an unlisted landline or a mobile number when all other sources fail you.