It's unfortunate but it's not as bad as Twitter/other forced logins for features. The difference is that making an account is free, you don't have to pay anything and there are no ads, whereas Twitter has incentive because it needs ad revenue and wants to look like it has more people on it
Actually I was not threatened that I was stealing if I didn't wire! I wish I was though because that would have definitely given it away. The receipt of my bank deposit they asked me to take a picture of just had more than enough to pay! I remember double checking the receipt in-case it had too much personal information and even was aware that I didn't want to show my balance but something in my brain just didn't combine all the pieces until I heard the words "wire transfer" which triggered memories of crime shows.
I understand, I had that same belief. My thoughts were that faking checks and money is dangerous and stupidly hard, and since jobs pay you, the idea that it was a scam never came to my mind until way later when I was asked to wire...
I was not in the right state of mind, my brain weirdly skimmed and auto-corrected grammar mistakes. I thought it was weird but I was just happy and yet busy to think about it further.