The disastrous job market that began with the crash of 2008 created such a frenzied competition among qualified candidates for the few jobs available that someone was bound to wade into the breach and offer phony reference services.

Welcome to the era that made CareerExcuse.com and Reference Store inevitable.

CareerExcuse.com, subject of a recent expose of sorts by the online "news" site The Daily Dot, offers job seekers a way to repair a damaged resume or make a lackluster one more lustrous.

In a nutshell, the Columbus, Ohio, company will create for the client a phony company website and phony references from the phony company where the real person supposedly worked. When an HR person calls to check someone's work history, CareerExcuse.com will confirm the client's employment. For a few dollars more, it will put a "former manager" on the phone to discuss the various attributes of the jobseeker.

They offer the same services for clients who need an apartment reference.

Trashed your last place? No problem — you lived somewhere else in the fantasy world of CareerExcuse.com, with an imaginary landlord who loved you.

As CareerExcuse.com says on its website, "Fake landlord verification services provide you with a local or toll free number for your leasing agency. Plus, we'll answer all incoming calls as the fictitious Landlord company and confirm your rental status."

But the company's real strength is as a job reference.

"Bad Reference?  Resume Weak?  Fired?" CareerExcuse asks on its home page. "We will act as your past employer and have our operators standing by to give you that 'great' reference that you need to any inquirer's.  Join now and you will be able to create a career with a work history and pay range as you see fit."

(The websites of CareerExcuse and Reference Store are littered with grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors, so any that appear in quotes in this article are as a result of quoting the site accurately.)

In an interview with The Daily Dot, CareerExcuse.com founder William Schmidt pretty much nailed the environment in which his ethically squishy company was birthed in 2009.

"Yes, there's a moral issue in fibbing on your résumé to land a job, but that's for people [i.e., the paying customers] to deal with themselves," he said. "In today's environment with rampant unemployment, everyone's looking for an edge. Our service just gets them the interview."

HR professionals and the guardians of business ethics loathe the likes of CareerExcuse.com and similar services. Many diatribes against them can be found on the web.

HR service provider GIS addressed the CareerExcuse.com phenomenon in its December newsletter.

The article said, in part, "Everyone has heard of misleading résumés, those résumés that fudge their employment information just a bit and even résumés that use diploma mills for their college diploma. Now [CareerExcuse] has taken the two and put them together, creating an abomination: a website that sells fake references, fake former job information and much more. … The real problem with this is that, though highly unethical, lying on your résumé is not illegal."

Actually, Amy Feldman, general counsel at headhunting firm the Judge Group, told The Daily Dot that clients of such services could face fraud charges for lying during the hiring process. And, obviously, anyone busted for using a phony reference would likely be fired.

CareerExcuse.com is fairly straightforward about its services and its process, and doesn't defend them outside of explaining the risks on an FAQ page. Its chief competitor, Reference Store, takes a different approach.

Reference Store also offers fake references and phony landlord endorsements. But it also plays the other side of the ethical fence through another service, Reverse Reference Check.

"Are you being Black Balled? Don't let a past employer keep taking out revenge against you. The Reference Store will check your past references to learn exactly what your OLD employers are saying about you to prospective NEW employers. We work with you to develop a set of questions beyond the basics. The Reference Store then sends you a complete report to include:

1) "Who" gave the reference.

2) "When" the reference was given.

3) Conversation Transcribed."

And, without apparent irony, Reference Store tells is Reverse Reference clients: "The report we write, may be sworn and used in Court Action against your past employers."

The unethical machinations set off by the extremely difficult job market have included  other attempts to create fantasy businesses, contacts and supportive former bosses and coworkers. Both LinkedIn and Twitter have battled creators of phony profiles on their platforms.

It's all just further evidence of the "it's OK if you don't get caught" attitude as people try to build resumes and social networks that don't exist to enhance their lives in some way.