diff --git a/Octokit.Tests/SimpleJsonSerializerTests.cs b/Octokit.Tests/SimpleJsonSerializerTests.cs
index 9586899e24..36fb12705d 100644
--- a/Octokit.Tests/SimpleJsonSerializerTests.cs
+++ b/Octokit.Tests/SimpleJsonSerializerTests.cs
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 using Octokit.Helpers;
 using Octokit.Internal;
+using System.Collections.Generic;
 using System.Linq;
 using System.Text;
 using Xunit;
@@ -119,6 +120,34 @@ public void DeserializesEventInfosWithUnderscoresInName()
                 new SimpleJsonSerializer().Deserialize<EventInfo>(json);
             }
 
+            public class MessageSingle
+            {
+                public string Message { get; private set; }
+            }
+
+            [Fact]
+            public void DeserializesStringsWithHyphensAndUnderscoresIntoString()
+            {
+                const string json = @"{""message"":""-my-test-string_with_underscores_""}";
+
+                var response = new SimpleJsonSerializer().Deserialize<MessageSingle>(json);
+                Assert.Equal("-my-test-string_with_underscores_", response.Message);
+            }
+
+            public class MessageList
+            {
+                public IReadOnlyList<string> Message { get; private set; }
+            }
+
+            [Fact]
+            public void DeserializesStringsWithHyphensAndUnderscoresIntoStringList()
+            {
+                const string json = @"{""message"":""-my-test-string_with_underscores_""}";
+
+                var response = new SimpleJsonSerializer().Deserialize<MessageList>(json);
+                Assert.Equal("-my-test-string_with_underscores_", response.Message[0]);
+            }
+
             [Fact]
             public void UnderstandsRubyCasing()
             {
diff --git a/Octokit/Http/SimpleJsonSerializer.cs b/Octokit/Http/SimpleJsonSerializer.cs
index a6750e8c3c..5835bcac3b 100644
--- a/Octokit/Http/SimpleJsonSerializer.cs
+++ b/Octokit/Http/SimpleJsonSerializer.cs
@@ -90,7 +90,6 @@ public override object DeserializeObject(object value, Type type)
                 var jsonValue = value as JsonObject;
                 if (stringValue != null)
                 {
-                    stringValue = stringValue.Replace("-", "");
                     if (ReflectionUtils.GetTypeInfo(type).IsEnum)
                     {
                         // remove '-' from values coming in to be able to enum utf-8