[Too]

Similar thing happened to me. Recruiting agent was playing as if they were on my side all the time. They asked what my desired and walk-away salary was "to make sure my desired salary wouldn't sound stupid/outrageous to the company", also under promise of confidence. I smelled something funny and deliberately gave a lower than standard number to test them. Later the company contact quoted me back with the exact same number.

I also found out that they called other companies i had been in contact with for other jobs, without going through the agent, to get and share information about me with/from them. This was what raised my suspicion to the agency first and made me test the salary question. Didn't take the job they delegated in the end, but for other reasons.

I'm not advising against agencies, they can be useful and land you a good job but don't think for one second that they are your friend. They are there to extract as much information as possible from you. Don't tell them anything that might put you in a bad position for the job and your salary.

[rmc]

They asked what my desired and walk-away salary was "to make sure my desired salary wouldn't sound stupid/outrageous to the company", also under promise of confidence.

A good way to even it out would be to reply with "Well I dunno, why don't you tell me what the company's desired salary is, and I'll tell you if it's outrageous?". After all, if the only reason they want to know is to prevent you sounding stupid, they'd tell you that, right? :P

[onemoreact]

The proper way to use recruiters is to quote a high salary as your minimum. If your skills set you up for say 80k-120k then it's easy for you to find an 80k job and hard to find a 120k job so quote 115k. If they call you back it's probably worth your time to listen, and if they don't you have lost nothing.

PS: Now, this can change if you have been looking for a while and really need a job, but there is little reason to start low balling yourself.