You can easily find cases on online forums in which the posters are struggling with suspicious calls from 888 phone numbers. For example, there’s a caller who claimed to be an official business, leaving the poster wondering where to verify them after getting 4 successive calls1. Another Reddit user even got a call about a legal action, they quickly felt that was catfishing, though, still couldn’t stop wondering anxiously what if that was true2.
So it’s not at all exaggerated to raise your alarm towards an 888 phone number and try to dig as much information as you could, if you feel unsafe and unsure getting calls from it. Check out the 4 effective methods in the post to look up the owner and relieve your concerns.
Usually government agencies and big corporations would use phone numbers with area code 888 or 1888 for telemarketing and customer service, as they’re toll-free. But the public trust on this area code has been exploited by scammers extensively. Especially when the caller disguise themselves as some official account service, sending you bills and even getting your information right on the call, like this case of the T-Mobile user, it’s just too hard to tell whether that’s spoofing with no knowledge about the caller3.
A toll-free number does have more “freedom” than a usual landline phone number. For example you can forward it to different devices and use it through a virtual online system.
But toll-free numbers are registered under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just like normal phone numbers. To get one phone number with 888 area code you need to submit real personal and business information. So they’re traceable.
Besides, the owner may use the 888 phone number actively, leaving it as contact info on social media and other websites. All these traces are what we can use to find out the phone number owner.
1. Reverse Search It
Professional people search tools search available information specifically from public record sources, social media networks and the dark web. Their search algorithms can provide you with the most likely matching potential owners along with other available information in detailed reports, such as how high the scam risk is.
Here we recommend you two people search services that both have extensive directories and rich information sources around phone number activities and owner details. We’ve tested them out for you and our ratings and comments are as follows.
| buff | BeenVerified | Intelius |
| Editor’s Rating |  |  |
| Safety |   |   |
| Record Sources | Millions | Millions |
| Searchable |  Landline Cellular VoIP Toll-free International Pre-paid | Landline Cellular VoIP Toll-free International Pre-paid |
| Phone Report |  | |
| Personal Report | 17 categories of information | Rich work history, financial records |
| Loading Speed |   |   |
| Error Feedback | | |
| Subscription | Different time lengths All data available under one plan | Different time lengths Different report types |
| Trial | SEARCH NOW | SEARCH NOW |
Take BeenVerified as an example to see how a people search tool works for reverse looking up an 888 phone number.
1) Visit the Phone Lookup page of BeenVerified.
2) Enter the 888 phone number and click Search.
3) When BeenVerified finishes locating the matches, you may open the phone report for all the details available about the phone number, like its possible owner, scam risk, neighbor spoofing risk and search volume. BeenVerified also collects real customer’s comments for the same phone number, so that you may get more valuable information from people in the same situation.
4) Go to Potential Owners, select the possible owner you’re suspicious of, click Search person to unlock the owner’s personal report.
5) The personal report goes deep into the owner’s public records and digital footprints. You may be able to see their address, photos, work history, credit and legal records, and social media profiles.
2. Use a Free Search Engine
Option 1 – Search on Google
That’s the quickest way you can try. Enter the 888 phone number you have and run the search engine, eg. Google. Browse through the result list to see if any addresses, company names, social media sites or photos show up. Or you might find a direct warning that it’s a scam call.
Option 2 – Search on Forums
You may also search for similar experiences in big forums like Quora and Reddit. There you could post a question involving the exact 888 phone number in the post, just like this one on Reddit, gathering people getting calls from the same number to collect information4.
But before all that trouble, notice that Google Chrome can help you raise efficiency when sourcing the targeted information. Just type in the 888 phone number along with “site:xxx”(xxx is the URL of the site) and click the search icon. See if there’s already people out there searching for the same thing.
Sometimes nothing useful appears on the browser. And you have very few clues to double-check the information you got. That’s when you may consider using a professional people search tool.
3. Use a CNAM Directory
A CNAM (Caller Name) directory is a database with lots of phone numbers and the names under which they registered. You may find plenty of these products online and they’re mostly free. FreeCallerLookup.com is one of them that you can try.
But 888 phone numbers are usually for business, and the information you can find on these websites is normally just a caller name. It’s possible that you couldn’t find what you truly need or have to conduct further research.
Many businesses run social media accounts. You can normally find the contact info in their profiles, which may include the 888 phone number. And the mainstream social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all allow you to discover users through their phone number. This feature is called contact syncing.
Take Instagram for example:
1) Save the 888 phone number in your directory.
2) Open Instagram and click your profile at the bottom right.
3) Tap on the three lines icon at the top right, and click Settings– Account – Contacts syncing.
4) Switch on the button.
5) Now in Discover People you can try to find if a strange username appears, it might be the owner of the 888 phone number you’re checking.
Final Words
That’s all the efficient methods we provide for you to search the 888 phone number. And using a people search tool like BeenVerifiedor Intelius is the way to get the most information as soon as possible. Hope our methods helped you figured out the caller’s identity and their purposes. Leave a comment below if you have any questions.
All product names, logos, brands, trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.
- r/JimBrowningOfficial [cepix1234]. (2022 Jun. 13th). Question phone number lookup [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/JimBrowningOfficial/comments/vb673w/question_phone_number_lookup/. ↩︎
- r/legaladvice [sparklymoons]. (2021 Jun. 26th). Getting phone calls saying call a number about a case because of legal action [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/o7xaa3/getting_phone_calls_saying_call_a_number_about_a/. ↩︎
- Prepaid – Billing [jackitheripper]. (2023 Jun. 29th). Scam? [Online forum post]. T-Mobile Community. https://community.t-mobile.com/billing-61/scam-51703. ↩︎
- r/CoinBase [Spiritual_Rope_2829]. (2022 Mar. 09th). Anybody else been getting scam calls from a 888 908 7830 number? I can’t log into my account anymore but I am pretty sure they are scammers so I hung up. What should I do now? [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/t9plnt/anybody_else_been_getting_scam_calls_from_a_888/. ↩︎
