A few years back, I worked for a private investigator who did a lot of business providing telephone number information to other PI’s and the general public too. His company was doing on the order of $5K a day in phone searches alone!
His client list numbered in the thousands, with all of the major federal, state, and local government agencies listed and active. The ratio of reverse cell number lookups to landline phone searches ran about 3 to 1, and was by far the most popular and profitable service we provided. As head of the cell phone search unit, my job was to coordinate the orders for reverse cell number searches (cell cna’s in our lingo) with our subcontractors who actually acquired the cell phone owners name and address information.
Our phone search specialists were a loose-knit collection of ex-telephone company employee’s, collection-agency sharks, and computer hackers who lived for the challenge of getting account information from the cellular service providers. They tended to be very inventive, male, and anti-social to the point of not being fit for any other profession! Most specialized in very specific areas like disconnected cell numbers, or unlisted numbers. Others were excellent at obtaining cell phone records (aka cell tolls).
Over the course of my three years in this position, a few of the more memorable reverse phone search jobs still stand out. There was the cell phone number search order that came in to get the newly changed cell number for a certain Bell Atlantic Mobility customer. This guy (we’ll call him Robert) had been hounded to death by his ex long before we got the order to get his latest cell number. A dozen different phone number techs tried without success to get his latest cell number. The techs all reported that the account was double-passcoded, and flagged for supervisory access only. We were about to no-hit the order when a new cell number specialist contacted our agency. This new phone guy claimed to have special database access that no one else offered (like we had never heard that before LOL).
Our receptionist was aware that we were having major issues with this high-priority account and put the call through to me directly. As he began to list his capabilities, I cut him short and said “look, if you are actually that good, how about giving me the new cell number for Robert”. He didn’t even hesitate! I gave him Robert’s full name, and exactly fifteen seconds later he gave me the subject’s new cell number, along with reciting the various security notes and safeguards that were listed on that account. That day began a long association with this vendor that we dubbed “The Magician”!
It was much longer before I got bored with the work and went back to school to finish my computer science degree. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder what ever happened to those guys. And looking at the present database phone search applications available everywhere now, I wonder if The Magician has anything to do with them?
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