Hi, peppertamba
Your experience really sounds wired.
It is true that we can restore deleted iPhone contacts with iPhone Data Recovery.
We can retrieve lost contacts directly from your iPhone.
And here are:
Step 1 Connect your iPhone to Computer and Choose your Device
Step 2 Select the Recovery Mode
Step 3 Check and Recover Lost Contacts
Now deleting or losing a contact doesn't mean it is gone forever.
But I suggest you to have a backup in iTunes or iClound.
In other way, you can have a try to restore contacts from iCloud, and you can get more information here.