As a freelancer, you can put a great deal of time into carefully considering the needs of a new/prospective client, developing a preliminary plan for the project and preparing a carefully considered estimate. This is typically done gratis. It is in one's best interest to spend this prospecting time on the highest likelihood/value prospective clients. Behavior like the spam-and-ignore on behalf of some of these companies reflects poorly on the group and will make the best freelancers reluctant to participate.

As an aside for freelancers, I recommend following Brennan Dunn's work:

http://brennandunn.com/ http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint

He does _so_ much for the freelancer community.