How to Check Phone Number: Everything You Need to Know

Dave Moore - November 7, 2025

Just about everyone in the United States has a phone number, and you’ll even find that some businesses and people may have multiple phone numbers. While a phone number may seem harmless, some people use multiple phone numbers to spam people, run scams, or simply bother people. For these reasons, it’s important to know how to check phone numbers. If you don’t, you can end up falling victim to robocalls, harassment, or worse, scams. 

The good news is that we always have your back. You don’t have to guess, speak to someone, or even waste time trying to track down the owner of a phone number. Instead, there are plenty of great online tools that will help you check a phone number, and in this guide, we’ll cover the best methods.

We’ll also cover why it’s important to check these phone numbers, along with how you can protect yourself. Learn more in this guide.

Why You Need to Know How to Check Phone Number 

When it comes to checking phone numbers, it’s important to know why you should be doing this. After all, why go through the trouble of checking phone numbers if you don’t think you have to? Unfortunately, we’ll show you some compelling reasons to check all unknown phone numbers below.

Identity Verification 

First and foremost, you should be checking phone numbers to verify someone’s identity. Whether you want to determine if you’re dealing with a catfish phone number after meeting someone on a dating site or you want to avoid falling victim to a scam, verifying a caller’s identity is important. You’ll also find that you can verify which organizations a caller is affiliated with and determine if they’re telling you the truth with the right tools.

Maintaining Accurate Customer Profiles 

Let’s say you’re a business that makes a lot of cold calls, or even a business that keeps account information for customers available. Don’t you need to know that you’re reaching out to the right person? It’s for this reason that checking a phone number can help businesses avoid wasting time and money on the wrong phone number.

Protecting Yourself From Spam Calls 

The last thing you want to do is answer a spam call or robocall and start chatting. This shows that you own and use the phone number, and even if that number doesn’t call you again, we assure you that many others will. In fact, sources have found that Americans receive upwards of 2.5 billion spam calls per month, so you may want to check a phone number to avoid falling victim to spam calls.

How to Check Phone Numbers

Now that you know why you need to check phone numbers, it’s time to jump into how you can check these numbers. The good news is that there are a handful of tools you can leverage to verify the identity of a caller.

1. Reverse Phone Number Lookup 

The best way to check phone numbers is to leverage a reverse phone lookup tool. Thankfully, if you’re looking for the best tool, you’re already in the right place. At Information.com, we offer one of the most reliable reverse phone lookup tools in the industry. All you need to get started is someone’s phone number. 

Once you have this information, you can enter the phone number into the tool to begin your search. After you’ve entered the phone number into our tool, your search ends and ours begins. We’ll comb through millions of public records to help you find the information you’re looking for, and we’ll get this done in a matter of minutes.

You’ll be able to view the basics almost immediately, like someone’s name and address, but you can also dig deeper in the comprehensive full report. Within this full report, you can view all available public records associated with a phone number. When it comes to identity verification, this is the best thing that you can do because you’ll get to learn everything in one place.

Some examples of the information you can find include:

• Criminal records. 
• Vital records, like birth and marriage records.
• Civil court records.
• Websites, social media accounts, and dating profiles.
• Email addresses and additional contact methods.
• Sex offender status.
• Location information that goes beyond someone’s address. 

The best part about our reverse phone lookup tool is that this list is not exhaustive. Depending on the phone number, you may find additional information.

2. Google 

When you want to check a phone number, you can always leverage a tool like Google. As one of the best search engines in the world, you’ll have no problem checking most phone numbers, especially if you’re looking into a business or something similar. This is because most businesses and public offices have their phone numbers listed online.

For these reasons, you can enter the phone number into Google to see what you can find. Nine times out of ten, you’ll have no issue verifying a business’ or government agency’s phone number when running a search on Google. 

Unfortunately, where you’ll run into some problems is if you try and verify a number that belongs to an individual. This is due to the fact that some people may not have their phone numbers just out there online for everyone to see. In these cases, you may have to refine your search even further. 

The good news is that Google offers an Advanced Search tool that will help you narrow down your search results. To use this tool, you can add or remove keywords, which can help you find out more information about a phone number. For example, if you have additional context like someone’s name, you can add it to the search results. Sometimes, this will help you find results you wouldn’t have found otherwise.

3. Call Screening 

When it comes to checking phone numbers, why not start at the source? Well, this is what call screening tools enable you to do. Some smartphones have this capability built in, like the Google Pixel, but you can also leverage call screening apps.

Regardless of the tool you use, how call screening works tends to be simple and universal. When someone calls you, you can screen the call, and a bot will speak to the caller on your behalf. Typically, scammers, spammers, and robocallers will just hang up the phone once they reach this point. However, more serious callers can state their name and intentions before you pick up the phone. 

In fact, many services allow you to communicate with the caller through the service. Therefore, you can screen someone yourself before you even pick up the phone. While you won’t always learn more about the caller, it’s a great tool to leverage if you want to determine if a call is worth answering.

4. Hire a Private Investigator 

A private investigator (PI) may seem like overkill here, but sometimes they may be what you need. This is because PIs have access to tools that aren’t available to the public. Sure, you’ll be able to use public records search tools, but for tricky unknown phone numbers or restricted callers, PIs may have more efficient search methods. Plus, you don’t have to do any of the work when you have a PI handling the situation for you. 

While a PI is always a good way to get information, it’s not for everyone. If you just need to verify someone’s identity or you want to find someone’s real phone number for prospecting purposes, it’s not exactly efficient. What’s more, if you need to check dozens of numbers daily, it’s going to end up costing you a fortune. 

Therefore, you need to carefully consider whether or not it’s worth it to go down this route.

5. Speak With the Caller 

Now, this isn’t a method that we always recommend, but sometimes it can work. If someone appears to be legitimate and you want to learn more about them, sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to speak with the caller.

Whether you’re communicating through phone calls or text messages, sometimes speaking with the caller can reveal the information you need. This is usually helpful for checking that you have the right phone number, but it can also help you deal with unknown numbers, especially if you can’t track them through other means.

That said, we only recommend this option as a last resort to avoid spam, scams, and other problems that may come from picking up these calls.

Our Final Thoughts on How to Check Phone Number 

Knowing how to check phone numbers is an important skill that you need to master in this day and age. Whether you want to check if a call from the 943 area code is spam or you want to check a text message from the 213, knowing how to check a phone number can be the difference between making a friend and falling victim to a scam. 

The good news is that all of the tools we’ve covered in this guide can help you determine if you’re dealing with a scam caller, robocaller, or something else entirely. However, we always recommend starting with our reverse phone lookup tool for the best results. It provides you with the most current and accurate results available.