Are you constantly receiving unknown calls on your smartphone? TECHBOOK shows the tricks you can use to easily search for the name after the cell phone number.
When you receive an unknown call on your smartphone, you automatically ask yourself who is calling and why. Is it perhaps a friend with a new number – or is it just another tiresome hotline employee from the mobile phone provider who wants to advertise a new contract? Or even worse: Maybe a stalker rings, the tax office or a club acquaintance you have already suppressed. When these calls pile up, it can be really annoying. But don’t worry: based on the cell phone number, it is possible to search for the identity of the caller. There are several easy ways to do this.
Look up cell phone number in phone book backwards
A good first place to start is the phone book reverse search in the online phone book: Here you can simply enter the cell phone number and look for the owner of the corresponding telephone connection – at least if he previously agreed to an entry. A suitable app is, for example, “The Local Telephone Book for Germany”. The application is intuitive and the database is quite comprehensive. However, it is only limited to German numbers.
Find unknown callers on WhatsApp
Messenger WhatsApp can also help to find the owner of an unknown cell phone number. Simply save the number in the phone book of your smartphone. If the caller has an account with WhatsApp, you will automatically find them there under “Contacts”. A profile picture or the status may provide information about the identity of the unknown caller.
call mailbox
If neither the reverse search nor WhatsApp provide the desired success, a call to the mailbox can perhaps clarify the cell phone number search – the caller may have set up an individual announcement for his smartphone mailbox. There is a way to call the mailbox directly without it ringing first. Each provider has a corresponding code for this, which is placed between the area code and the number when dialing. At Vodafone, that’s about the 50T-Mobile hat die 13 and O2 the 33. You can see which provider the caller is using from the area codes, which are distributed as follows:
Telekom:
01511
01512
01514
01515
01516
01517
0160
0170
0171
0175
Vodafone:
01520
01522
01523
01525
0162
0172
0173
0174
O2 (and E-Plus):
01590
0176
0179
01570
01573
01575
01577
01578
0163
0177
0178
Now, when an unknown call comes in with the number 01520-1234567, you know it’s a Vodafone customer. If you want to call the mailbox, put the number 50 in between and call the following number: 01520-50-1234567. This also works if the owner has taken his number from one provider to another. If, for example, the cell phone number you want to look up belongs to Vodafone according to the area code, but is now using a Telekom contract with the same number, the call will be automatically diverted to voicemail.
A notice: Caution is advised if none of the common numbers were used for the call. If you do not have relatives or friends abroad who would explain a foreign cell phone number and make the search easier, you should be careful that it is not a payment trap.
Also interesting: why you shouldn’t just call back unknown numbers
Use Google to lookup cell phone numbers
Of course, you can also simply search for the cell phone number via Google as a test – but you should note a few things. Be sure to enter the number in quotation marks (“”) so that Google only searches for this specific cell phone number. Perhaps you can find a company that you can assign the number to. On sites like Tellows you can also enter the number and see if other users have already complained about spam or rip-offs and tell who is behind the number. Then you at least know that you can save yourself the callback.
If you still have no clarity after looking for your cell phone number and feel harassed by the unknown caller – TECHBOOK gives tips in the following article on how to easily block annoying people.