diff --git a/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js b/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js
index 0de220cb..e573be1a 100644
--- a/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js
+++ b/spec/HTTPRequest.spec.js
@@ -217,6 +217,17 @@ describe("httpRequest", () => {
         done();
       }
     });
+  });
+  
+  it('should get a cat image', (done) => {
+    httpRequest({
+      url: 'http://thecatapi.com/api/images/get?format=src&type=jpg',
+      followRedirects: true
+    }).then((res) => {
+      expect(res.buffer).not.toBe(null);
+      expect(res.text).not.toBe(null);
+      done();
+    })
   })
 
   it("should params object to query string", (done) => {
diff --git a/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js b/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js
index 2dc5f979..7c0b11f4 100644
--- a/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js
+++ b/src/cloud-code/httpRequest.js
@@ -52,6 +52,8 @@ module.exports = function(options) {
   } else if (typeof options.params === 'string') {
     options.qs = querystring.parse(options.params);
   }
+  // force the response as a buffer
+  options.encoding = null;
 
   request(options, (error, response, body) => {
     if (error) {
@@ -63,11 +65,11 @@ module.exports = function(options) {
     var httpResponse = {};
     httpResponse.status = response.statusCode;
     httpResponse.headers = response.headers;
-    httpResponse.buffer = new Buffer(response.body);
+    httpResponse.buffer = response.body;
     httpResponse.cookies = response.headers["set-cookie"];
-    httpResponse.text = response.body;
+    httpResponse.text = response.body.toString('utf-8');
     try {
-      httpResponse.data = JSON.parse(response.body);
+      httpResponse.data = JSON.parse(httpResponse.text);
     } catch (e) {}
     // Consider <200 && >= 400 as errors 
     if (httpResponse.status < 200 || httpResponse.status >= 400) {