I am not sure why this is the first I've seen it in any sort of news media. I've had this sort of thing happen to me many times. Luckily, I was quick to pick up on things that made it seems less than legitimate. Often they would email from addresses that were not on the company domain, so I would actually call the company and verify the person worked for them. Of course, every single time, it would be proved to be fraud. I reported each instance to the FBI cybercrimes division, but I am not sure if anything came of it.
In my experience, they wanted to mail me a check which I would then deposit into my account and use the money to buy home office supplies from a "preferred supplier" website. Were my desperation for a paying job overriding my better judgement, I could have been the one on the hook for check fraud. I was out of work for about a year, at that point, and my unemployment had run out. How many people fell for this and had their lives ruined?