Reputable recruiters charge employers, not candidates. Any so-called "recruiter" who takes their cut directly out of your salary (as opposed to charging the employer a percentage of a candidate's salary in a lump sum payment) is a con artist. Period.
But on the other hand, that sounds very similar to the arrangement wherein a contracting firm hires you at $100k/year and bills customers for your services at $100/hour, even when you work at the customer's site, using the customer's equipment.
If the customer drops the firm, you just get fired instead of benched.
That is exactly how hundreds of "Beltway Bandit" firms operate. Charge the government double what it costs you to employ someone, and spend most of your workday recruiting on behalf of your customers.
Recruiters get paid by the employer, and not off the candidate's pool. It's
employer who bears the burden of paying the recruiter in our current setting.
This is why your situation was deemed scam (a.k.a. unusually sub-par for the
environment).
