<prompt> Human: A family member of mine just got hired to a graphic design job for a newspop-culture website, and the terms of all this seem a little fishy to me.First off, she was contacted by email and was told that they would do an interview over Google Hangouts specifically text only. They did the interview, and she got the job relatively quickly. She has a great resume so Im not super surprised by the quick hire, but I find it a little weird that there wasnt even a phone call or in-person interview. I should note though that this is for a working-at-home position.This is the part that really concerned me. They said they are giving her a start up check to purchase required equipment to start working. This check will have to be at least 5000 USD because she would be getting a new MacBook Pro, a lot of software, a time-clock terminal, and monitor calibration hardware. And she has to purchase all of this from a specific vendor because the payment would have to come from our employee to help enable them verify the location and alternate shipping address for future purposes, and all materials will be Customized in your name and the Company Logo.Then, they say they will email her the check for her to print out and mobile deposit. Both of us have been receiving direct deposit or paper checks forever, so this seemed a little weird for me.On top of all this, she used a headhunter, which is how she has gotten a lot of her freelance work for a while now. So she didnt directly apply for this job, and cant really find the paper-trail for how they found her.So far, this is the only documentation they asked for: Full name, Address, Cell and home phone, Date of Birth, and drivers license.Its an incredibly high paying job for our standards, and I wanted to make sure this was not too good to be true. My first thought is that this could somehow be some crazy elaborate scam. Or my second thought is that this could screw us over during tax season somehow. Either way, I want to make sure she is protected. Thank you in advance for any help or opinions!TL;DR: Company wants to pay new hire to spend 5000 in equipment rather than just send the equipment themselves.EDIT1: Thanks for the advice everyone. After seeing all your thoughts, I can pretty clearly identify that this is a scam when I read back through the google hangouts chat. I also went to the hiring company and verified that it is not a real email address associated with their company. Thank you all for helping us through this and saving us from a scam!  <response>: This is a scam. I dont know how many times weve seen this one here in the past 3 months. 