Dad had a weird problem with his Samsung Galaxy - all the contacts duplicated numerous times so that sometimes there were 15-20 of each and it didn't matter if they were stored on the Sim card or in the phone.

Carphone Warehouse told him it was faulty and caused by water damage even though it had never got wet and everything else works fine, so he bought a HTC Sensation XL put the sim card in and then the exact same thing happened, so he sent that phone back and got a Samsung Galaxy Nexus which he's had a week, and guess what? it's happened again

All the contacts have been deleted off the sim card so its blank and Dad only entered 6 or 7 contact details into the phone, then today all of a sudden there are multiple copies of some of the contacts - any ideas what the cause is or for a cure? Dad is on Orange pay monthly and has already had a replacement sim card in case the first was faulty.

Cheers

it's not anything to do with contact sync with google is it?

Untill the latest phone - the Nexus, he hadn't used Google Sync and there's nothing in Google to sync anyway.

Probably not the same but on my Android's I notice that I get the contacts stored on the SIM and the contacts saved in the phone displayed, so duplicates showed. I think I had to untick an option in the contacts/settings/display options menu.

I did that but it made no difference, it isn't just duplicating a contact its multiplying them and some appear 30 or 40 times

Maybe try a new sim card from the network.

Done that

Sorry missed that in th OP

still think its something to do with google and contact sync myself, have you checked your gmail account attached to the phone?

I think it may be sorted - I checked his online Google account and there were 529 contacts with loads duplicates, so I think what was happening was his contacts were syncing but he entered them again everytime manually as well and they got added in google - I've deleted the whole lot from google, the phone and sim card and turned syncing off so hopefully that'll cure it.

leave the sync turned on. if you delete them from google they will remove themselves off the phone. if you then add to the phone.. new contacts are automatically sent to your google account...(backed up)
you will find it much easier to edit the contacts in gmail/contacts than on the phone. changes made are automatically synced.

Happened to me once on the iphone