It was a reasonable email asking a reasonable question - and companies need to be called out on this sort of bullshit or it's not going to change. I hate renegotiating my own work conditions/package, but it's the conversation with the single greatest impact on my quality of life.

Neither companies nor candidates should be afraid of discussing salary. It can be awkward, but it's also really really important. As an employee, you trade your time and skillset for remuneration. It shows an incredibly exploitative attitude towards employees to respond in this way to what is effectively a simple question.

"Culture fit" has little, if anything to do with money. More likely, they cancelled her interview because they knew that if they wrote down their intended pay/conditions she'd cancel first. If a company's scared to talk $$ with you, it's the biggest red flag there is. Only sketchy companies like multilevel marketing (and apparently SkipTheDishes) try to pull these sorts of shenanigans.