I had the same thing happen to me last night, all of my contacts randomly disappeared. Here's the breakdown of how it all started:
I happened to toggle thru my open apps. It was then that I noticed the image on the email app showing an unrecognized name (Mr. J Robertson) and it was showing as a contact in my email app; not as an email or what I normally see under my email. I thought this was odd, so I opened my email app; when I did this image was no longer visible. I tried searching for the name I saw, and found nothing pulled up. I then tried to delete some of my emails, and got a message stating that it is unable to delete the messages selected at this time. When I refreshed my emails, I received multiple new email sound alerts coming thru on duplicates of three and four times on emails I had already received. It wouldn't stop! I have 5 different email accounts on my email app, the only one acting wonky was my hotmail, so I deleted it, and re-added it back.
Upon doing so, no mail shows up under my hotmail email, and I noticed shortly after that my contacts had disappeared (all but my favorite contacts). Within minutes my favorites also disappeared, and within a few minutes after that I saw the names of my contacts replaced with the phone numbers on my txt message app. All of this happened within a 10 minute time frame.
I still have not been able to retrieve emails from my hotmail account, and my contacts are still gone. I am afraid to connect my phone to my computer to restore my contacts from my last back up on itunes, icloud, or my verizon backup assistant; because it makes me wonder if I have a virus on my phone.
From talking to others in social media and viewing the forums on this verizon site, this doesn't seem to be isolated to just iPhone's or Androids; it seems to be a carrier specific issue with Verizon Wireless. Just a trend I am noticing.
