Is WeGive overwriting Virtuous Email Fields?

The Problem
When you update a contact’s primary email in Virtuous via the API/webhook, the old primary email doesn’t get overwritten. Instead, it remains on the record, but without its original type designation (Home, Work, Other). It shows up as just a generic email.

Why It Happens 

• Virtuous treats every email address as its own contact method record.
• Setting a new email as primary doesn’t overwrite the old one — it creates a new record and flags it as primary.
• The system then demotes the old primary to a non-primary email, and because only one address can hold the “typed primary” slot, the old one loses its type tag and becomes a generic email.

Why It’s Not Really a Problem

• This is normal system behavior, not an error.
• The design ensures you never lose historical email data. Old emails stay attached to the contact for reference, reporting, or auditing.
• The only active primary is the one you designate — so communications always go to the correct address, even if old addresses are still present.
• If you don’t want the old email to remain, you can explicitly delete or deactivate it, but by default Virtuous errs on the side of preserving data.

In short: Virtuous doesn’t overwrite email fields — it reassigns roles. The new email becomes the primary with its type, while the old one sticks around as a secondary without a type.