When I search for the provenance of a phone number, I get a bunch of services that want my money or look shady or both. Does someone know a good one? I'm in the USA.

Gosh, it's been over 20 years since I needed reverse-lookup. I can't even remember the name of the site I used.

I did find a site that purports to rank the ones available now. https://www.techlazy.com/free-revers...okup-services/

Had to verify it's still there.

Same as frankbell.

I stopped using it because there's too many ways to spoof.

If some number calls and doesn't leave a message, Spam.

Now sometimes I get called and the caller ID says "Suspected Spam".

That's never encouraged me to answer.

https://www.whitepages.com/reverse-phone

I use an Android app called Reverse Lookup. It has ads, which can sometimes be a little intrusive, but it mostly works. The problem, though, is that spammers/scammers almost always spoof the number they're calling from, so the usual result of a search is that it's a cellphone number, and there is little information available about those. The callerID for calls from spammers is almost never the real phone number that originated the call. They use spoofed local numbers to try to fool the unwary. That actually makes it easier to identify them in many cases. For the area code and exchange my phone uses, there is only one number that I recognize, and that's my wife's. I know if she's calling, and I ignore all others. The reverse lookup apps can't deal with this, so they're mostly useless because they can't get the real phone number originating the call. Most of the time, if I don't recognize the number, I ignore the call. If it's someone who really needs to talk to me, they can leave a message.

Police have ways, means, & subpoenas. You have nothing, really. Landlines go back to the 19th century and are stupid in their design. Cell phones were made compatible with them.

Not any more. I can remember when the phone company itself had a number you could call, enter a phone number, and be told the "owner" of the number. That service disappeared years ago (mid/late-'90s maybe).

If I'm curious whether a phone number is from a legitimate caller, a simple internet search tells me whether the number belongs to a known company (still possibly shady, though). If the search hits are all about scams, 99.99% of the I don't even have to follow any of the links to know it's not a number I can trust. Then I block it.

HTH...

I was very often called by unknown numbers and when I picked it up it was some weird people that proposed to me a lot of stuff I didn't need or they advertised me something so I decided to look for a site that would help me to know who calls me. It's very useful, I use it almost for a year. This site https://www.livesupportrhino.com/ also provides you general access to a full report of the person behind the anonymous number. You can find the information about the locations, street, and name of the person that called you or even a business name.

If you're very often called by people you don't know, you've left your number on the ether, facebook or the like. Maybe your mail was hacked. Check on http://haveibeenpwned.com One of the quickest ways for a guy of getting into a 'rich' country from a poorer one is to marry some girl on the rebound, get his residency, then get on with your life without her. She will separate/divorce. I saw it practiced on someone I knew. It's not nice.

The first time I got a cell phone, the next day, before I had told anyone about it or mentioned the number, I got a robocall trying to sell me auto insurance. Automated dialers call every number. I stopped answering the phone 25 years ago so there's no point in giving out my number; I still get calls - from, I assume, automated dialers as well as the businesses that insist on numbers (my medical insurer, for instance).

Robocallers don't usually bother to find phone numbers. They just use a computer to call every available number. They mostly get no answer, but if they get one in a hundred, they can usually make money, because the computer can make so many calls so easily. They also spoof their own number, to make it look like a local call, by showing a number in the same area code and often in the same exchange.

Here, we don't get robocalls as a rule. We do get texts on some networks, but we have the benefit of EU Data protection. So the 100% cure for robocalls is - move to the EU!

My Pixel phone, from Google, detects robocalls and either drops them or offers a choice to screen the call. I get a lot of them, but I actually see very few. It's really not an issue at all with my phone. My wife's phone, OTOH, a Samsung, gets them every day. Most are marked as suspected spam, though.