Woman paid $700 for ‘hairless cat’ who later sprouted fur

A CANADIAN woman thought she was shelling out $700 for a hairless Sphynx. But two weeks after she bought the kitten, it started sprouting fur.

This is what a real sphinx hairless cat looks like

A FAUX-FELINE fraudster scammed fans of hairless cats in Canada out of hundreds of dollars.

JoAnne Dyck thought she was shelling out $700 for a Sphynx kitten she named Vlad, but two weeks after she bought him, he started sprouting an orange coat of hair.

“He was like a little tiny kitten, no more than 8 weeks old, and he was naked. Completely hairless,” Dyck told CBC. “It looked like a Sphynx because he was very, very skinny and his face was really angular.”

But when Dyck brought Vlad to her vet in Alberta, she learned that she had been duped by the original seller, who advertised the cat by posting an ad on the classified site Kijiji.

“I thought he was crying for his mom, but he probably was in pain,” Dyck said.

The vet informed her that Vlad had been shaved and may have even had a hair removal gel like Nair applied to his skin, which caused cuts and other irritations.

Vlad was advertised as a hairless Sphynx cat

Someone shaved Vlad and plucked out his whiskers

Dyck posted her story to social media, where two other women revealed that they had experienced similar situations that stemmed from purchasing a hairless cat from Kijiji.

Shayla Bastarache, 20, also bought a Sphynx kitten for $650 from the site because she thought she was getting a good deal. The pure-bred feline typically costs around $1,200.

But like Vlad, Bastarache’s cat, whom she named Moofasa, started sporting a black coat within a few weeks.

“They just grew their hair back,” Bastarache told the Canadian Press.

And when she tried to reach out to the seller, the person’s cellphone number was no longer in service.

Bastarache kept her hirsute Moofasa, but Dyck found her cat a different home — claiming it was because Vlad didn’t get along with her other kitties.

Dyck did admit she learned a lot from the cat saga, including that prospective owners should always go to a breeder’s home and meet the cat first.

“Definitely go to where the cats are being bred. Never meet them anywhere. If they don’t let you come to their house, their residence, it’s probably a bad sign,” Dyck told CBC. “Just be sure that it’s a reputable breeder if you’re looking for one of these specialty cats.”

This article was originally published by the New York Post