Greyed out Contacts

[suzyannc]

My sister borrowed an old iphone that was still attached to my iTunes account and now all her contacts are saved on my iphone and iPad but no in the contacts only when I open a new SMS or email. when I start typing the contact name her contacts will also show up greyed out. How can I delete them?

 

[Rod]

The question is a bit lacking in detail but I assume that somehow your sister associated the phone to her Apple ID. You will need to tell us exactly what she did to get her contacts on your phone. One way or another your sister will owe you one by the time this is fixed.
Below is the method used to prepare an iPhone for sale, it will give you an idea how complex handing an iPhone over to a new user actually is and it may well be what you will have to do.
Either way your sister will owe you one.

What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Learn what to do before you sell or give away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
If you still have your iOS device
Before you sell or give away your iOS device, make sure that you've removed all of your personal information. Follow these steps to protect your data and get your device to its factory default state for the new owner:
1. Back up your device.
2. Sign out of iCloud:
1. Tap Settings > iCloud, scroll down, and tap Sign Out. In iOS 7 or earlier, tap Delete Account.
2. Tap Sign Out again, tap Delete from My iPhone, then enter your password.
3. Go to Settings > General > Reset, then tap Erase All Content and Settings.
• This will completely erase your device, including any credit or debit cards you added for Apple Pay and any photos, contacts, music, or apps. It will also turn off iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime, Game Center, and other services.
• If you're using iOS 7 or later and have Find My iPhone turned on, your Apple ID and password will be required. After you provide your password, the device will be erased and removed from your account so that the next owner can activate it.
• Your content won't be deleted from iCloud when you erase your device.

When the new owner turns on the device for the first time, In this case this will be you Setup Assistant will guide them through the setup process. If you use a computer to backup you will be guided to plug in to iTunes. At this point you can restore from an old backup (my choice) this will restore all your information, contacts, apps, music etc. or set up as a new phone and start from scratch.



Important: Don't manually delete contacts, calendars, reminders, documents, photo streams, or any other iCloud data while signed in to your iCloud account, or the content will also be deleted from the iCloud servers and all of your devices that are signed in to iCloud.

 

[suzyannc]

Do I do that on the phone that she used or the phone Im using now? if I do it on mine, won't it just reload her contacts? Yes she did associate the phone with My iTunes account *sniff sniff*

 

[Rod]

Dear suzyannc, if you have a nearby Apple Genius bar this might be an easier option for you. Considering the time zone differences between us and the number of questions I need to ask an get answers to from you this could take days. From this end I can only suggest a "nuke and pave" approach. For example do you intend to give this phone to your sister? If so you can follow the instructions in my last reply but you will also need to Restore your own iPhone from a previous backup on (you didn't say if it is backed up to a laptop) and if it is backed up to the Cloud then the process is slightly different.
All in all a lot of variables.
It all hinges around your (and your sisters) Apple ID's. An Apple device can only be associated with one Apple ID. So Find My iPhone, Mail, Contacts, iChat, iMessages, iPhoto and iTunes and the device itself are all linked to one account. This means that an Apple device needs to be deassociated from one account before it can be associated to another.
If, as I suspect your sister tried to login to iCloud services as herself on your old phone by replacing your ID with hers that would explain a lot, but I'm just guessing here.
So to answer your question follow the steps I gave you on the old phone. That will at least remove it from your and hopefully your sisters Apple iTunes account.
Next you need to remove any traces of your sisters Apple ID from your Apple ID on the new phone because everything is synced across all your devices by the cloud. This means restoring it to a state before this all happened. If you backup to a laptop then you can do this in iTunes. If you only backup to the cloud then you can simply erase your phone, return it to factory settings and perform an online restore by setting it up like a new or existing phone.
Either way I think you need hands on assistance. You may be able to avoid a number of my steps because the results will be visible to the operator/serviceman (to me they are not). I do not know the model of iPhone, the iOS versions etc. and this all adds to my difficulty.
Let me know what you decide.
Rod