Perhaps a day late and and a dollar short, or a helpful hint you'll use in the next month or so.

If you don't use Google as a search engine, you should check it out. One of the features it has is the ability to read an area code and number and it will do a reverse directory lookup.

The results also has links to maps. When you are collecting a debt, returning a call to an unfamiliar number or geocoding addresses, this is an easy way to see who and where. It won't be 100%, but it is handy to not have to go to different sites when it works.

It's almost scary how powerful Google is. That's a great feature (the reverse directory). I used to use 5551212.com and infospace.com for their reverse directories, but I think Google's approach is interesting and probably gives some very unique results because of where it pulls the numbers from.

These tools are great when you receive a call to verify that a check is good or from someone who says they're your customer seeking to verify a balance. Take their number, tell them you'll call them back, and in the meantime, see who the number really belongs to.

How do you access this feature on Google?

So simple it's scary!

Go to http://www.google.com

Then type the telephone number directly into the search field and click the "Google Search" button. You can put in the number unformatted (no hyphens), but you'll get a lot more hits if you use 999-999-9999 format.

Works for "800" numbers, too!

Thanks, John. That's so simple even I can do it.

Another useful Google search that I have found is the 'links' search in the advanced search menu. I use this when I do my website review to see what sites have added links to the bank site.

That actually works in more than Google. Here is an excerpt from my Web Linking Policy.

III. SITES THAT LINK TO THE BANK

A. For several reasons it is important to know who is linking to the bank’s web sites.

1. Some search engines (AOL, HotBot, MSN, AltaVista, Excite, Go, Northern Light, FAST and Google for example) determine your placement in search results in part by the number of sites that link to you.
2. The bank needs to be aware of what other web sites may be “co-branding” itself with the bank.
3. The bank needs to be aware of links as this HTML code may not mention the bank’s name, but rather have it is a list of sites to visit. This list could be a positive or negative reference.

B. To determine link popularity, visit any of the above-named search engines (III. A. 1.) and enter “link:sitename” (without quotes) in the search field. "Sitename" would be changed for each of our Uniform Resource Locators (URL). For example, to find out how many Web pages link to the First National Bank Texas site at www.1stnb.com, enter:

link:http://www.1stnb.com

in the Search For field and then click Search. The results will then be displayed

C. Additional search engines should be investigated as to whether or not they execute “link” searches.

D. It is advisable to also determine if sections of the bank’s web site are linked to independently. This may be the case for major “departments”, such as mortgage lending, jobs and Gold Key.

a. This would be determined by the popularity as a whole of that department.
b. Other ATM related sites may link to our ATM locator page, as an example. Finding a link to this section could be a positive reference because of the convenient location. It could also be a negative reference if the referring site was negative towards ATM fees.

Here are a few more reversing services:
1) Superpages - Yellow Pages - Detailed Search. Enter all or part of the number. This will also find businesses at an address. http://yp.superpages.com/ypform.phtml?SRC=&STYPE=&C=&N=&T=&S=
2) Superpages - Personal Pages - Reverse Phone. http://wp1.superpages.com/wp/reverse.phtml?SRC=&STYPE=&WL=&WF=&T=&S=&A=&X=&P=&WES=&Z=&E=&WENum=
3) Anywho.com - Reverse Lookup. http://anywho.com/rl.html