Can I find an address from a phone no?

[picasso]

I have a christian name, phone number and town location of a BT residential line. I need to find out the surname and/or address for this number. Any ideas?

[Tat]

gimmie an S... 'S' gimmie a T... 'T' gimmie an A... 'A' gimmie an L... 'L' gimmie a K... 'K' gimmie an E... 'E' gimmie an R... 'R' what does that spell...? ;)

[picasso]

It is a genuine question which I hoped for a genuine answer to. Basically a "local" advertiser carried out some very poor work on our house and I only have his phone number. I need his full name and address to help if I need to go to court etc....I would appreciate help from people with sensible replies - (your answer was mis-informed and not welcome "tat").

[IndieSinger]

Oh give Tat (note the lack of quotation marks) a break, you have to admit, your question did sound a bit dodgy (go on, re-read it). And Tat was only joking, hence the wink at the end!

You could try typing in the information you do have into Google (especially if you put the 'phone number in your inverted commas). If it's a business with a website, or if s/he's ever published his 'phone number online, then Google would probably find it.

[Tat]

sorry! no offence meant! indie knows what i'm like. if all 'proper' methods fail you could always try calling them saying they've won a prize or something and try and get their address that way... (doubt it's legal though!)

[brawburd]

that's the wonderful unpredictability of AB Picasso - the written word often conjures up images you hadn't planned on. I have to say Tat's response wasn't mis-informed cos you hadn't given the information at that time, and when I first read your posting my reaction was the same! Could you get someone else to phone the number (assuming the person is still "in business") and request a quote or whatever. Might be possible to get the information once contact is established, by whatever means are required. Good luck with it.

[picasso]

Thanks for all your answers so far....I was "hoping" for a definitive answer to help me (more inverted commas I'm afraid). Please accept my apologiesTat as I am in desperate need for an easy solution as the bad work has obviously cost me money and given lots of grief and heartache. I have tried 192.com and UK info disc to no avail as yet. Can anyone else help?

[Dave Potts]

If you or anyone you know works (permanently or as a temp) for BT they could bring up the name and address relating to the 'phone number using their internal Customer Service System (CSS). In so doing they would be contravening the Data Protection Act, so naturally I can't advocate this as a course of action but hey, laws get broken all the time. If you network through enough chatrooms I'm sure you can befriend somone who works for BT (despite all the layoffs they still employ tens of thousands of our bespotted 'youf') and ask them to do you a favour, in the interests of all that is just et cetera. Order him a dozen pizzas from me.

[apricot]

You could try local Trading Standards, if the work was of poor quality the likelihood is they are well known. How did you find them in the first place?

[picasso]

The trader advertises in the local rag. I might be able to get a lead from them. I'll try that next I think.

[Moog]

I would go straight to the place that you saw it advertised, they will certainly have the full details for invoicing purposes, but may be reluctant to hand them over to you, there are two alternatives, make a complaint to trading standars they might not be able to help, but also might have had complaints about this person in the past or ongoing so may be glad for your input, if this doesn't work you can purchase a subscription to www.192.com which allows you to do a reverse number look up... might be pricey but it depends how out of pocket you already are, or if he's a registered company which seems unlikely the company details will be available through companies house http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ or how about getting one of your mates to call him and get him round to quote on a job see if he can get address details out of him.

[Scary]

Certainly worth giving the net a try, just type the number into Google.co.uk and see what comes up. Remember to try a few variations, brackets around or an - after the dialling code