In fact what you have experienced would have been even worse in the states - for an expensive smartphone subsidized by a plan there, they would have checked not only the validity of your residence permit/id card, but also your credit history :) Telcos are the new nazis and that's it - it's like that all over the world and we cannot really do much about it. In some European countries the mobile networks are lobbying hard for allowing people to use mobile phones while driving, thus putting negligible increase in profit ahead of human lives/health.