I created a package with a hyphen in the release field (package: pbs-mom version: 2.1 release: 15-RH5). The resulting package is called pbs-mom-2.1-15-RH5. It installed correctly, but when I try and remove the package, RPM tells me the package is not installed. I checked with rpm -q and it says the package does exist. I upgraded to rpm 3.0.2-6 and it didn't fix the problem.
Try specifying rpm -e --allmatches your_package_here to uninstall package. You also need to do "rpm --rebuilddb" after upgrading to rpm-3.0.x.
I rebuilt the database and tried rpm -e <package name> and rpm -e -allmatches <package name> and still got the same result. I can provide the package for testing if needed.
Erase it by package name only (e.g. 'pbs-mom'), not by the full package name-version-release combo.
This problem appears long since resolved.