“I’m sorry, we just don’t have the budget to pay you”, says the multi-million £/$ company, “but it’ll be good exposure for you!”
I see things like this pop up in my Facebook feed quite regularly from folks who’ve received random emails from individuals and companies asking them to work for free and they choose to quote them before ridiculing them on their public timelines.
Then somebody usually posts this link (or rather, a copy of it hosted somewhere else claiming it as a genuine email exchange – yup, folks, it’s pure fiction).
http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html
It’s funny, sure, but not the way to win people over you actually want to pay you for what you do.