Kind of amazing that it is standard procedure on Internet forums but in real world Internet business where money is changing hands, it is lax. Sprint no less. Corporate arrogance??
As the author pointed out, he could have done some very evil things if he was so inclined. If someone did use the customer data to 'have some fun', the company would not be liable (I would assume) because the customer provided the wrong info.. The evil doer would be the bad guy in the eyes of the law. The customer who did not pay their account balance because they did not receive a bill will have to pay (plus the assessed late payment penalty). I do not think that the company's IT department sets up the online customer payment system - pretty sure they contracted it out. There are a lot of firms that provide this service and some of them do this type of shoddy work. If there is no company oversight on the work (and there seldom is), the system goes into production. The company would be very reluctant to spend more money. Catch 22.