We are going to explain how you can find out whose phone number it is when they are calling you and you do not have it in the phone book. Nowadays, most of the time that you receive calls from numbers that you don’t know, it will be because they are spam calls, and they just want to sell you something. Therefore, we are going to help you find out whose number it is, whether it is from an advertising company or an individual.
We are going to start by explaining how to identify calls with the internal options of some Android mobiles, although it is not a method that always works. Then, we will go on to tell you about search engines where you can try to find who the numbers belong, and we will end with a notice about specialized number identification apps.
Use your mobile identifier
As we have said at the beginning, in most cases calls from unknown numbers will be due to Spam. That is why this first method can be useful to you, although only some specific manufacturers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, Vivo, or Google include it. This is an option to filter spam or unwanted calls, and it helps you identify them by showing you who they belong to even if you don’t have them in your phonebook.
To activate this filter, you have to enter the settings of the calls app and look for an option called Caller ID and spam, or similar. Look for the option that refers to caller ID or spam protection.
Here, activate the See person and caller ID function if your mobile has it, so that the mobile can tell you when a call is from advertising, and try to find out which company it belongs to indicate it on the screen. You can also turn on spam call filtering so it blocks calls from numbers it identifies as spam.
With these measures on mobile phones that include it, you will get rid of or be able to identify many of the advertising calls you receive. But it won’t work for all numbers, as there may be some that have not been identified as spam by phone systems, and hence there are some alternative methods.
Number identification services
There are many pages of online number identification services on the Internet. These are directories that collect phone numbers and their owners. So, if you have a missed call that you can’t identify, you can type the phone number that called you to find out who it belongs to. Here are some of the most popular pages:
- Google: Ok, this is not a page that specializes in collecting numbers and their owners. However, before using any other you can try searching for that phone number on Google. Believe it or not, at least for identifying spam it can be quite effective.
- Yellow Pages: Yes, the usual yellow pages have their website, and in it, you can find the telephone numbers of most Spanish businesses. Therefore, you can simply look up the number on their website, and it will search the databases of both the Yellow Pages and the old White Pages.
- Listaspam: This is a directory specialized in the most harassing spam, those numbers that call people massively to sell them things. If the previous two have not worked for you, this one can also be useful.
- Who has called? : It is another directory of information on telephone numbers, and in this case, it is updated by the users themselves.
WhatsApp Web is another good alternative
And what about private numbers? Almost everyone in Spain has WhatsApp, there is a method to send WhatsApp messages to numbers that you do not have in your phonebook. All you have to do is open the browser and type the address wa. me/telephone number, changing the phone number to the number of the person you want to write to. Remember to put the international code, such as wa.me/346XXXXXXXX in Spanish numbers, where the code for Spain is +34.
When you do this, a conversation with the owner of the number will open and their profile will load, and in many cases, you will be able to see their name or even a photo of them. Here, you do not need to write anything, because just by opening the chat you can see your data.
Beware of apps to identify numbers
Another resource that you can use is the various applications to identify numbers, such as TrueCaller and others similar. And they are useful because they are collecting a vast database of phone numbers and their owners. However, you should know that they can be a serious problem for your privacy, both yours and that of all your contacts.
Keep in mind that these applications work by collecting contacts, and they will request access to your calls, SMS, and also your contact list. If you give it to them, among other things they can collect information from you and your contacts to add them to their databases, and you may not want your number to go there or compromise the people who entrusted you with their phone numbers.
So these apps are very useful but bad for privacy. And TrueCaller can be good as far as it goes, but others that you can find by searching the app store on your mobile may not be so good. Always be very careful with these tools.
Sharlene Meriel is an avid gamer with a knack for technology. He has been writing about the latest technologies for the past 5 years. His contribution in technology journalism has been noteworthy. He is also a day trader with interest in the Forex market.
