I didn’t say this was okay, I said it doesn’t warrant a lawsuit or a regulatory complaint. What would the complaint say? ”The utility made an egregious error and corrected it.” And the lawsuit - what would the customer sue for? The cost of the phone call? Typically, lawsuits and regulatory complaints are filed when the company doesn’t correct the mistake.
I also work in the financial industry. When a situation like this occurs we create a self-identified issue, engage partners in the Risk Management, Regulatory Affairs, and Compliance departments, determine how the error occurred (what controls were bypassed, what coding errors might have led to the problem, etc) and develop an action plan to ensure it doesn’t occur again. Then someone gets fired. Something tells me there will be a similar process -and a former utility company employee looking for a job in the new year.