iPod touch contacts with company check are duplicated on sync

every time i sync (since the 1st sync)... the itouch creates a duplicate of EVERY contact that has the company checkmark in my address book... and that duplicate is now filed by name - and the checkmark is removed.. also it adds a bunch of square symbols (ascii for space i think)... if i go an remove them - it repeats it again as soon as i sync.... its like it has no idea how to use the company checkmark... both are apple products - do they not play nice together?
mac os x10.5.7
itouch 2.2.1 (updated today)
address book from apple

tried restore and reimport.. same issue happens.

thanks for your help 🙂

nope - the other day i had 5 of some... i finally got peeved and unmarked all of my contact for the company flag... then it took me HOURS to merge the contacts... which made for a lot of duplicated info within the contacts... ridiculous... apple is completely ignoring this issue. itouch v 3.1 did not fix it.