Apple Tech Support confirmed Duplicate Contacts has reached Apple Software Engineering as a known problem

Sometime after iOS 17, the issue of duplicate contacts became an issue for many iPhone owners, with many owners describing 10K, 20k and 30K contacts, with up to 10 to 12 duplicates as a result of a glitch in iOS 17

Reps at the Apple Store were unaware, but after my Nov 2023 Tech Support Call and another call today and getting nowhere with the first-level tech support, I was transferred to a higher level of support. Elliott at Apple confirmed Apple is receiving numerous calls regarding Duplicate Contacts and Apple has no solution currently other than manually deleting the contacts. Some Apple iPhones have reported over 30K contacts on phones. Elliott was hopeful this would be addressed in iOS 18. Numerous open "tickets" with no solution to this problem.

Does anyone at Apple aware of this known issue care to chime in?