Butternut Box Director interview questions

Bit of s strange experience. First interview with HR was pleasant, I was told I’d be put through to the next stage, that I had great experience etc etc, they said they'd follow up with questions to prepare for the stage etc. They also mentioned there were no other candidates at a more advanced stage. Only flag was there was a relatively small difference in salary expectations between myself and the company. Now, I appreciate companies need to have templated email sequences to manage candidates, but Butternut should put in more effort to make the sequences make actual sense. Two working days after the interview I got an email saying ‘there’s another candidate at the final stage, so we’ll delay your next stage’. Despite being told two days before there were not other candidates more advanced. Reading between the lines, clearly there was a hesitancy about salary expectations, which is fine, there’s no need to make up excuses which don’t make sense. Two weeks later I got a generic message saying there were other candidates with more appropriate experience they were progressing with. Again fine, but just be honest about the real reasons. Overall my feedback is to just be a bit more transparent, candidates aren’t dumb and can cope with honesty, rather than generic emails which don’t make sense.