The site appears to be a reverse directory for cell numbers but seemed suspicious so I checked my number (which I've had for 15+ yrs). It was listed under someone else's name in my home city. I checked several more numbers from my contacts in various cities and states (USA) and none were correct. All were associated with the wrong names but the correct city.
I searched but could not find any contact info for Hodges. The site does not have an "About us" page or provide a means for contacting them.
The home page "site map" displays "lorem ipsum" dummy text under links for searching by town and area code.
I found no specific info on Hodges at the FTC, but did find several review sites where users considered it to be suspicious. For example:
hxxp://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/hodges-phone-directory-garbage/
ScamAider states that the site is based in Montreal, located at Lat:45.504 Long:-73.5747 and has negative feedback.
hxxp://www.scamaider.com/is-hodges-directory.us-safe-legal.html
Based upon research this website, hodges-directory.us and the sister site, hodges-directory.com have significant web traffic generated by Google search. The more this site is used for look-ups - the more this place can earn in ad revenues.
The most amazing part is that this site provides useless data. Actually this is by design. Even if it is a complete fake, it looks real. This is why it's so compelling for folks to spend time to search the data.
Why? Good people like you and me are desperate to find out who's calling - even if we have figured out it's robo-callers. But most of the time it's from a spoofed telephone number.
Using web "scraping" bots, or other more nefarious means, the hackers compiled random info a mashup data stores. So why do the hackers go to so much trouble? Probably ad revenue -- Once Google and other search engines rate it as having compelling content, it gets another boost in the search results and earns more ad revenue.
Stats: Hodges-directory.us receives about 7,000 unique visitors. Estimated page views work out to about 1.20 per visitor per day. The potential annual ad revenue could be between $30-40K per year.
If that's not enough to fund the hackers' lifestyle, it's possible to squeeze a lot more using more intrusive programming. I just can't verify this site does it. Here's how: Once you visit this bogus database, it's simple to harvest your IP address which gives away your location (exact latitude and longitude) AND capture whatever search terms you use. As a bonus they can also grab your browser history and cookies. This info gets "triangulated", a fancy term for correlated, with other data they have on hand. This process, data verification, is useful intel. They sell your data to bill collectors or corporate sellers of public records for background checks.
Sure, here's another even more disturbing nightmare. A casual visitor can be exposed to tracking cookies or malware. BTW, this site is hosted outside of the United States so there's no way to take down the site for doing legal or illegal acts. The admin email address should give you an idea of the purpose of this site: europeanwebinvest@gmail.com
No idea what this site is about. If it's about phone numbers, it has to be one of the worst organized books that I've seen. Also, I now know the data is inaccurate. Rating accordingly.
My husband's name is on this website. He is the only person in the world with this name. It shows his name, with an address and a town that he has never been to, and a phone number that has never been his. Which I will have him call in a few minutes when he gets home. This is some kind of scam going on.
Site gives supposed names and locations for phone numbers, but the phone number I was looking up was listed as belonging to a person who does not live in that city, on a street that does not exist. Other reviewers in various forums also found this same thing.