First Media interview questions

I got an interview fairly quickly, which was nice. About 2 minutes into the zoom interview, I was told that a former employee was already asked to come back and that full disclosure if they wanted the job, it was theirs.(what!) And then we went ahead and completed the interview for some reason. (why!) It took a few emails back and forth to finally hear back that the former employee had, in fact, chosen to come back and the position was filled. I've always had my suspicions but it's completely different seeing first-hand how some companies pretend they're hiring and going through the motions of wasting everyone's time just to hire internally. I guess this is fun for them? Do better pls!