I use a few email addresses as test contacts.
If I delete one of these contacts, next time I add it to Isoft (via a form or anything else) all past data reappears with it - e.g. custom field data, email blast records, general data etc.
Is there any way to completely delete a contact and purge all data with it?
Thanks 
Hey Owen, my understanding was that if you delete a contact record it DOES dump their details; with the exception of email history.
I’ve found that email history is tied to the email address, not to the contact record. So when you add an email that the system recognizes (either from another contact, or from a deleted contact in the past) it automatically displays past email history from that address on the new contact record.
Are you saying that when you delete a contact, and then readd using the same address - it’s bringing ALL contact info back as well, including tags, custom field data, order history, notes, etc? To me that does not sound like its behaving as expected.
I’d suspect that a) the contact isn’t being deleted entirely in the first place, or b) it could be a bug.
What does support say?
@Greg_Jenkins is right on the money. To over-use a phrase, we’re talking apples and oranges here. Emails that are tied to an email address are their own entity with their own history. The association to a contact is not tied to it as you could easily have multiple contacts with the same email address assignment. Deleting email history because a contact is deleted would delete the history for all contact with that email address. So history is maintained on the email address level. The way to correctly manage this would be to only use unique email addresses for each and every contact (don’t allow email duplication)
Thanks Both. I can understand the need to retain email history for a contact. That’s fine as it doesn’t affect future campaign behavior.
But to confirm, when I re-add a contact after deleting, yes it does seem to bring back data for the things I mention (custom field data for example). Obviously, these can impact on campaigns.
Is this not expected behavior?
Thanks!
That would mean something else. I have never seen custom field data restore with a contact. If you delete a contact, then the custom field data (which is stored on a separate table) has always been permanently deleted as well and there is no restoring it without IS doing a restore from a backup.
ok thanks, maybe it’s a bug, I will ask support. Thanks for your help