Since I was interviewing for a contract role, this is the process I went through: 1. An agency recruiter conducted the initial phone screen. 2. An account manager from the agency called to negotiate an hourly W-2 rate before submitting my resume to IDP. 3. An onsite interview was scheduled with two hiring managers at IDP. 4. I traveled more than an hour away to their Wyncote office in Pennsylvania but wasn't offered travel reimbursement from my agency nor from IDP (travel reimbursement is a standard HR/Recruitment procedure but don't expect it from them or you will feel disappointed). 5. The next day the agency's account manager informed me that IDP wished to offer me the job and I accepted. 6. Another follow-up call came from the agency account manager literally the DAY BEFORE my start date. This time he announced that the salary was being "renegotiated" but did not give any solid reason for it. Regardless, you can't "renegotiate" after an agreement has been made but they did anyway. The initial hourly rate which was offered and agreed upon was significantly slashed to a much lower one and I was essentially duped/coerced into taking a "full-time" salaried role when it was essentially still a contract role but at a much lower hourly rate than what was discussed earlier. Needless to say, it had caused me great financial hardship. I suppose I could have rejected the job offer with the new/lower rate but I was trying to do the right thing since I felt I had more integrity than that. I had already given my word to the hiring managers that I was interested in joining and I felt that I should not back out the DAY BEFORE they were expecting me onsite. In hindsight, I definitely should have rejected the agency's second (unfavorable) offer since the initial rate was already agreed upon well before my resume was submitted to IDP. The agency's behavior was unethical. Consider this a public service announcement: Please be warned that there are some very unscrupulous placement agencies out there who would do anything to cheat their clients and their own consultants just to make a hefty profit. Lesson learned.