Sucks, but could be worse (although you seem smart, so you probably wouldn't get suckered into this one...)

My work hired a Senior Chemist, the duties included method developement, training more junior chemists, daily lab duties, etc. A guy from Atlanta was apparently a great candidate, and they offered him the job, including relocation assistance. He had been out of work a while and had a family back home, so he asked for a two week advance on his pay to drag his stuff out to Colorado...

He lasted three weeks before he called to say that his kid had gotten hurt, and he needed to go visit them. We never heard from him again. The company got three weeks of training in, and no useful work from him. So they started using a temp agency to screen people and vet them for three to six months on contract before hiring.

HR sounds like a cluster either way, glad I'm just a worker bee and don't have to deal with it.