PhoneDetective.com is an advanced search gateway that grants you access to hundreds of millions of records about landline, mobile, and unlisted phone numbers.

These records are collected from public information and other sources.

Why would you want that? Well, it allows you to truly discover who's calling!

Unlike a caller ID that is displayed on your phone, this service actually gives you information on unusual or unrecognized numbers, so that you are kept protected and in some cases, have enough information to proceed with legal cases.

Whether you're researching a phone bill, tracing an unwanted caller, or verifying an address, Reverse Phone Detective makes the entire process possible.

Upon arrival inside the member's area, we were quite surprised to see so much info and options readily available. After all, we were just expecting a simple box to enter a number!

Speaking of searches, the search results of Phone Detective include:

* Owner name and address
* Phone type - landline or mobile
* People search results
* Household members
* And more

So in summary, what you get as a member:

* Unlimited reverse phone lookups for landline and other listed numbers

* Advanced people search - find relatives, co-workers, and reunite with classmates

* Discounted cell phone and background reports

Here's a sneak preview of the member area:

Overall, first impressions are that you certainly get value for money and lots of handy features inside the member's area. The question now remains...

Most cell phone numbers aren't available in free whitepages directories or people search sites.

Phone Detective seems to specialize in those hard-to-find numbers, which makes their web site far more useful than a regular free reverse phone lookup.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work outside the US since it is driven by US directories and databases, so if you're not in the US then this will not work for you.

Apart from that, yes...this seems to work just as described. Obviously, there's never a 100% success rate in obtaining the info, but even from our early tests on a select few numbers we found 95% of them came back correct and with full detailed information.

This was certainly more than can be said for its' rivals in the marketplace.

There wasn't really much to find fault with this service to be honest. However, that doesn't mean it is perfect by any means. For example, here's a few small things we didn't like:

• Doesn't work outside of US

Their system is run off a USA database and therefore not yet an international service. This is annoying if you live outside the US, but for US residents, the coverage is full across the entire country...and that includes cell phones as well as land lines.

• Not 100% accurate or able to locate every single number (more like 95%)

It's to be expected that some glitches/floors in the service will happen, particularly as they are only a few years old. This is more due to the databases they have access to, but 95% success rate on finding caller IDs is not bad at all really.

• No visible live support

A small issue, but would be nice to see some sort of live support feature present as many sites now incorporate such features into their services online. Support is available however, but it's still email based.

• Full Phone Reports are limited to one per customer

Sadly, if you want a more detailed report you may have to pay extra. For normal usage however, this will not be an issue.

There were definitely a lot of plus points with Phone Detective. Such as...

• Vast amount of member's area options, from running reports to performing highly specific searches (allowing for greater success rate)

From the time you log in, you receive a large amount of choices from running different reports to specific searches. This is the most advanced reverse phone lookup service we've seen, and is clearly going beyond what you'd expect and pay for.

• Solid customer support and extensive FAQ/knowledge base helps to iron out initial concerns/problems

The FAQ section answered most of our questions (not that we had many!). The email support is prompt too - with an answer in under 24hrs, which is more than reasonable.

• Very effective service, finding almost 95% of the numbers we looked up

This is definitely the primary factor to take into consideration - the service and results you get for your money. The Reverse Phone Detective produced a high rate of successful lookups, and easily perfect performing database and search service we've found inline so far.

• Secure website, with full privacy and no obligatory continual charges

The site encryption and security is top notch, with full instructions on your privacy and no continued charges applied to get continued access to the site.

• Unlimited reverse phone lookups for landlines and listed numbers

For a one off fee, it's pretty good value to get unlimited look ups for landlines and listed numbers.

Maybe it's unlikely you'll need such a service that often, but it's a very helpful one to have at your fingertips should troublesome callers start giving you problems, or you desperately need to find out who's on the other end of that call that your partner keeps taking when you're not home.

• Databases cover cell phone numbers and includes location, carrier, and other details

Obviously, what also impressed us about the Phone Detective service is that the level of information is pretty useful and impressive. It's more than just a name in most cases, which can be very useful for you to know this added information.