My moto 4G play treats incoming messages as if they are group messages For some reason the messenger app that came installed with my Moto 4G Play is treating some messages as if they are group messages.  Even though these messages were sent from a friend to only me when I receive them on my phone they show as a group message, with myself, the friend, and 1 other phone numbers not contained in my address book all showing.  If I try to reply back it sends the message to all those in the group message, including resending the message to me.

I have noticed this effect occurs when different people message me.  When someone messages me it may come in as a standard message or the odd group message, with no apparent indication for why some are converted to group messages and other's aren't.  The very first text I got was a group message like this, before I installed any apps other then those preinstalled by Amazon.

Has anyone seen this behavior before or know how I can prevent it from happening?

I'm running Android Marshmallow 6.0.1
Try uninstalling any updates, disabling and re-enabling the stock
app. To do this go to settings > Apps > (your default messenger
app).  Then press disable/uninstall updates.  
Try using an alternative messenger such as WhatsApp , BlackBerry
Messenger or Telegram. All  of these are available for free on the
Google Play store.
Try resetting your phone by doing a "Soft-Reset". To do this go to
settings > Backup and Reset > Factory Data Reset.  Be sure to backup
all your data, app data, documents and media  on your phone before
doing this. 
If a soft reset doesn't work, try resetting your phone using a "Hard
Reset". This completely reinstalls your Android system. Like before,
be sure to backup all your data before doing this. Here's a link
with instructions to do so Motorola G 4G Factory Reset
Instructions