Just verbally when they sprung the 3 pay stubs requirement on me. I kind of knew where it was heading but they said it was standard practice to verify employment. Mentally I was over it, but I submitted them more out of curiosity to see if a company would actually stoop to such practices. It was right when the .com bust happened and a lot of companies now felt like they had the upper hand.
Sorry I forgot to mention, after I declined the reduced rate and told them I would not be taking the position, they countered with a rate that was %10 below what the original offer was, stating that no one can reasonable expect to gain a 35% increase in salary by just moving jobs, but I was underpaid at the job I was at (A start-up that did not have a lot of capital) and the rate, I was looking for was only slightly above market. When I refused that, they then came back with the original offer and when I refused that they came back with %10 above what we had agreed on. I did not let them drag it out any further and notified them that I was taking another offer. The thing was, their client was a large online travel company and I have worked on a lot of the travel systems people use every day. My background read like the job description they where looking for. So I am sure they had to do a lot of explaining as to why they lost the perfect candidate. Their client is a household name in travel and they where extremely happy that I was coming on-board, I am sure they held their clients feet to the fire with my background and where just looking to squeeze out more profit by taking it out of my end. They got greedy and it cost them.
