December 13, 2017

The Latest in Robocall Tech: Nothing

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Quick question for the hivemind. For the past month or two I’ve been receiving a lot of very strange phone spam. The phone number is always from my local area code, but it changes with every call. What makes the calls weird is that there’s no recorded message and no human being on the other end of the line. If I wait for a while, it hangs up. I get these three or four times a day on my landline and, more recently, two or three times a day on my cell phone too.

Is this the latest in annoying robocall tech? What’s the point? Why is someone spending money to call people and then do nothing? Is anyone else getting these calls?

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DECEMBER IS MAKE OR BREAK

A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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