wordpress edit_user_profile_update still ignoring conditionals

I have the following code in my plugin, and the error validation works perfectly and displays at the top of the user-edit page, however everything that I have tried with relation to saving... the conditionals are ignored. If I leave it empty, it displays the appropriate error but still updates the $billing_field with '', if I have 20 characters in there, or a bunch of letters, the error comes up, but it still updates it no matter what the $_REQUEST['billing_phone'] / $billing_phone value is... it feels as though the entire edit_user_profile_update and personal_options_update is being ignored?

public function audp_validate_user_account_fields( &$errors, $update = null, &$user ) {
    
    // Billing Phone
    $billing_phone = str_replace( array( ' ', '(', ')' ), '', $_REQUEST['billing_phone'] );
    
    if ( !empty( $_REQUEST['billing_phone'] ) ) {
        
        if ( !preg_match( '/^04[0-9]{8}$/D', $billing_phone ) ) {
            
            // Invalid Format
            $errors->add( 'billing_phone', __( 'Mobile Phone is invalid. Eg: 0412 345 678' ) );

        }
        
        $billing_phone_query = get_users( array( 
            'meta_key' => 'billing_phone',
            'meta_value' => $billing_phone, 
        ) );
        
        foreach ( $billing_phone_query as $query ) {
            
            if ( $user->ID != $query->ID ) {
            
                $errors->add( 'billing_phone', __( 'Mobile Phone already exists.' ) );
            
            }
        
        }
        
    } else {
        
        // Empty Field
        $errors->add( 'billing_phone', __( 'Mobile Phone Field Required.' ) );
        
    }
    
}
    
public function audp_save_user_account_fields( $user_id ) {
            
    // Billing Phone
    $billing_phone = str_replace( array( ' ', '(', ')' ), '', $_REQUEST['billing_phone'] );
    
    if ( !empty( $_REQUEST['billing_phone'] ) ) {
        
        if ( preg_match( '/^04[0-9]{8}$/D', $billing_phone ) ) {
            
            $billing_phone_query = get_users( array( 
                'meta_key' => 'billing_phone',
                'meta_value' => $billing_phone, 
            ) );
            
            foreach ( $billing_phone_query as $query ) {
                
                if ( $user_id == $query->ID ) {
                
                    update_user_meta( $user->ID, 'billing_phone', $billing_phone );
                
                } else {
                    
                    return false;
                    
                }
            
            }

        } else {
            
            return false;
        
        }
        
    } else {
        
        return false;
        
    }

    $this->loader->add_action( 'personal_options_update', $plugin_admin, 'audp_save_user_account_fields' );
    $this->loader->add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', $plugin_admin, 'audp_save_user_account_fields' );
    $this->loader->add_action( 'user_profile_update_errors', $plugin_admin, 'audp_validate_user_account_fields', 10, 3 );