Help! I have a mad hamster!

Question
Please help me, we relented 2 months ago and finally agreed to buy our daughter a hamster.
We looked into which sort to get and spoke with the shop. We decided on a syrian. We bought the only one in the shop along with a plastic cage (we have a cat and were advised on this sort of cage as best for cats and children) and a few other bits ie chewing logs, ball etc.
We thought the hamster was very big compared to others we had seen, but thought nothing of it at the time.
We followed all advise with taming it etc.
The hamster does nothing but bite everything it comes across. We have never been able to even put our hand into it's cage without it flying at us, and even feeding it has become a nightmare. It has shredded everything in it's cage. We are on our second ball, as it had started to chew a hole in the first one. (we put the ball into the cage and he goes into it) We have to replace the water bottle at least once a week (we now buy them in bulk!) as it eats it.
Now we have found that it has started to chew the clips off it's cage, and the plastic bit around the wire at the top has holes in, almost large enough for it to get out (we have removed everything it can stand on from it's cage)
It has not grown at all since we got it and I strongly suspect it is a fully grown adult, which had previously been returned. We have looked at lots of other syrian hamsters and they are all alot smaller.
Surely to behave in this manner it must have been traumatised or something?
What can I do?  

Answer

       It sounds like your hamster has been VERY badly traumatized. Most likely mis-treated by a former owner. This hamster could be having problems with it's teeth, that would explain the chewing on everything, or this hamster is trying to escape. I can not tell you exactly what it is doing by chewing on everything, I can only give you guesses, sorry. One definate answer I can give you is that your hamster has definately been mis-treated. The size of the hamster, well it is not a syrian, definately not a syrian. Most likely it is a teddy bear hamster, which is easily confused with a syrian, they tend to be bigger than syrians. My personal opinion would be to either get a new hamster, or just return this one.

Thanks for writing hope this was of help, good luck!