I had a similar experience recently with an employer essentially making an offer, but asking me to jump through all kinds of subsequent pre-employment screening

I had a similar experience recently with an employer essentially making an offer, but asking me to jump through all kinds of subsequent pre-employment screening hoops before they would disclose salary (which was, of course, below market when I pushed back and made them give me a number). I don’t knew if this is some new tactic, but the whole think struck me as trying to leverage a sunk cost fallacy to underpay employees.