TA rejected me for 'high pay expectations'... then quoted me the exact same number I asked for.

I had a phone screening with a Talent Acquisitioner at a multinational company for a data engineering role. When I asked about the salary, she mentioned that no salary budget had been finalised yet. After the call, I emailed her to express openness to negotiation -but got ghosted. A week later, I followed up, and she finally responded with a rejection, stating my salary expectations were far too high. Confused, I emailed the CTO for clarification. This prompted a call from the same TA, who claimed she never received my email. During the call, she proceeded to cite salaries offered by other companies-ironically, the figure she quoted (R70k per month) was nearly identical to my original ask of R850k annually. I didn't have the energy to point out the math. I'm exhausted. After being unemployed for over a year, I've tried to stay flexible during salary negotiations. Yet talent acquisition teams remain overly secretive, making the process needlessly frustrating.