248-3540238  who has this phone number

Hi there!

As a matter of policy, Google Answers Researchers are not permitted to
provide contact information for third parties.  We are, however,
permitted to provide you with resources to let you find this
information on your own.

To find contact information for someone using only their phone number,
you need to do a reverse lookup.  There are several telephone
directory sites that offer this service, including Reverse Directory,
which serves as a portal for six such services, with links to several
more:

Reverse Directory
http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/

Please note that unlisted, cell phone, pager, and newly established
numbers will not be available through these directories.


--Missy

Search terms:  [ reverse lookup ]

---

Clarification of Answer by missy-ga on 07 May 2003 08:26 PDT

Hello Maggie,

I'm sorry you found the answer lacking.  However, I invite you to
follow the link I have provided and input the number you've noted, as
it appears you've not done so.

You'll find that it does provide the information you seek in five out
of the six services used by that portal - ThinkDM is down for
maintenance, otherwise, I'm certain it would appear in all six.

I would not have provided you with the resource to use if the
information you requested had not been located.

You may request a refund here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=refundrequest

Regards,

--Missy

WANTED REVERSE LOOKUP ON UNLISTED NUMBER....OBTAINED WHAT SHE
DID...SHOULD GET REFUND....DIDNT GET WHAT I CONTRACTED FOR

I believe if you are telling the asker that you are not able to
provide the information they asked for, then it should be done as a
request for clarification or comment, not an official answer.  The
customer should not have to pay to find out that GA will not allow
their question to be answered.

Hello research_help,

The customer's question was answered properly.

I had no problem locating full contact information for the number in
question - name and full address - in 5 of the 6 services listed in
the resource provided.

The Google Answers FAQ clearly states that personal contact
information may not be posted.

Regards,

--Missy

Dear maggieg-ga and research_help-ga:

I was able to follow missy-ga's directions quite easily.

Thanks, missy-ga, for posting this answer; I learned something!

regards, mathtalk-ga

Me too. Pasted in the number, got a name, address, map, etc.
I'm not sure why maggieg-ga is dissatisfied with this result.

- Hammer

Research_help-ga,

Missy is right. She DID answer the question correctly from the link
that she gave. Google Answers researchers are prohibited to provide
direct personal contact information. If you personally check the link
that was given and follow the customer's query, you will find the
answer. It is just unfortunate that some customers do not check the
links provided by researchers or read the Terms of Service and FAQs
before actually using the service. More unfortunate still is that some
commenters do not check some answers before making an unfavorable
remark. The customer could also have asked for a clarification about
the given answer but she did not. I hope you try to think that you are
one of us so that you can understand how it feels to get low rating
without getting an opportunity to respond to a clarification.

Feilong

Just to clarify, I never said that the answer could not be found using
the link to the reverse phone directory.  Please reread my comment.
Customers use this service because they don't want to / can't search
for the information themselves.  So telling them to go look for the
information themselves is not really what they are paying for.

research_help,

Had Missy said "Go find yourself a reverse phone directory," your
comment would make some sense. As it stands, I'm not sure how you can
interpret the answer in this way. Missy provided a link directly to a
page where maggieg can paste in the phone number and get the
information.

I don't see how this is different from a Researcher providing a direct
link to information on any other subject by way of answer. Instead of
pasting an entire web page into the Answer Box, which is a violation
of copyright laws.

Again, maggieg need only click the link Missy provided, paste in the
phone number and click Submit.

- Hammer

1.	I noticed something about Google Answers TOS—Personal questions are
allowed, the TOS/FAQ merely says that “Google Answers discourages and
may remove questions that…request private information about
individuals” So therefore apparently Missy could have posted the
information and not run afoul of GA’s TOS. The way I read the TOS
item, if Google does not remove the question the request for personal
information is considered germane and the information can be provided.
2.	MaggieG put something in her rating that you all missed, but could
shed some light on her dissatisfaction. She writes that the number she
wants the reverse look-up on is unlisted. Obviously, the listing
returned by the look-up sites is a listed number. In some parts of the
US the telephone companies are running out of numbers so disconnected
numbers are being reused in less than a year. It is possible that the
information given by the look-up sites is obsolete—the number was
listed, disconnected, given to a new customer and is now unlisted.
3.	If I were MaggieG, when posting the question, if I had already
searched the reverse look-up sites and knew the information was wrong,
I would have posted that I was aware of that information and was sure
that it was wrong. But who knows, maybe MaggieG thought that GA people
have access to more information then she does so she assumed that they
could easily get unlisted number information. LOL Remember all of the
“Why isn’t my site in Google?” guest ions?

Hello asugmyn,

Your assumption regarding what we may or may not post, while certainly
understandable, is incorrect.

Researchers are contractually forbidden from posting contact
information for private citizens.  We are, however, permitted to tell
people how to locate the information.  Most of us do not do even that
unless we're able to obtain the information ourselves.

If a customer is aware that a directory listing is wrong, they need to
tell us, for, as useful as the ability would be for us as Researchers,
none of us telepathic or psychic.  We are only able to work with the
information given to us, and the information available to us through
publicly available sources.

If the directory listings above are incorrect, I'm afraid Maggieg will
have to avail herself of the services of a private investigator.  That
will cost considerably more than $5, however:

http://www.unlisted-etcetera.com/?hop=revphone.privateye#reverse

--Missy

I am with missy 100% on this. It is sad that a customer would be so unreasonable.

tisme-ga

The customer is always right - a point that often gets missed by some.
The customer asked for a piece of information and was given a way to
find the information, but not the information itself.

I am in a bit of a quandry that google's lawyers would allow
researchers to take on the task of researching an inquiry that could
lead to a unknown individual getting someone's home address. About ten
years ago a young man paid a detective agency in Nevada to find 'an
old school buddy'.  The agency was able to pay someone at a California
DMV office to get that "school buddy's address. A week later a young
man shot a young actress and killed her in the foyer of her apartment
building. She did not know him. He had become obsessed with her having
seen her on a television show. He lived in Nevada and he would never
have been able to find her, stalk and kill her had someone not been
willing to provide pertinent private information for money.  I think
there is an ethical issue here that google's lawyers should revisit.