Both of those are easily gamed in the absence of trust. For references the mechanism is obvious. They list co-conspirators as references who then lie about their titles.
For credit reporting it seems like you could do the same thing over time. Create fictitious entities to make positive filings with credit reporting agencies. I assume the reason that isn't more popular is that it's even faster to do it the other way and steal the identity of somebody with good credit.
References? Credit Score?