fakeusername

No, I would have asked them to go with that person. I knew current market value and asked that. I would not have accepted on original terms. Negotiation without counter offer is impossible to get that jump which I needed to accept the offer.

S/W Engineer. That pay scale is current trend in most good IT companies. Most of my friends in similar experience/field getting this, and I asked for that range too based on current trend.

HR is on holiday tomorrow. Can we do it on Monday?

Any argument against this? Jamespitts seems to make perfect sense here. @jamespitts, thanks for the valuable comments. As per my experience just asking $260K from the professional negotiator would have not landed me anywhere near this figure, he would have at-most increased 10K. Not arguing against what you said, just saying I cannot win with recruiter on negotiation without counter offers.

www.glassdoor.com may help.

That was the exactly the reason for lying, though can be justified for the game but you start to question your 'integrity' which is relative to the game you are playing.

Its $170,000 total package including stocks, salary etc. per year and not $1,700,000 and I am in Seattle, USA.