This is the hairless cat scam: take an ‘ordinary’ domesticated kitten with an full coat. Pluck and/or cut off all of the hair from the cat using a razor or Nair (a hair removal product manufactured by Church and Dwight for human use).

When the kitten is hairless, advertise the cat online as a Sphynx, the well-known and rare, hairless, purebred cat. The price? $700. Random bred cats are worth around $30.

That’s the scam. In a short space of time the purchaser will realise that she or he has adopted a fully haired random bred cat as the coat grows back fast.

Also the kitten will be traumatised. In an actual example of this scam the kitten cried constantly and strongly disliked being touched. The kitten was troubled. His orange coat grew back exposing the scam.

The new owner, JoAnne Dyck, took her ‘Sphynx’ to her vet. The vet inspected the kitten’s coat and reported that the cat was covered with small painful cuts.

JoAnne shared her experience on social media and others came forwards as victims of the same scam.

The matter was reported to the Calgary Humane Society (this happened in Canada) but they were unable to assist as the seller worked online and had no address.

That’s it and it is horrible. It is a unique scam as far as I am aware but scamming cat breeders using different methods are not exceptional rare.

It is also a terribly cruel thing to do. Horrendously cruel and wicked. Truly wicked to put a kitten through that. I would suspect the cat will be affected for his/her whole life.

My thanks to Dee for finding the story. And to ladyfreethinker.org for the story. She has a petition on the page:

http://bit.ly/2gQ1Unn

I don’t have a picture of the cat in question.