Had one group request references at the beginning, checked them, then my references got to infer that I didn't get the job offer. In fact if I recall, that gro

Had one group request references at the beginning, checked them, then my references got to infer that I didn't get the job offer. In fact if I recall, that group ghosted me, leaving me to infer as well. But then later another group asked me for references at the beginning, I declined to provide them, and then they were okay with proceeding through the interview process. Maybe it would work in the general case to always reply to such a request with "some previous group ghosted me, and so I've vowed to withhold the references until later in the process."?