A Renovation With 2 Tales

[Ceestar 0]

Yes, this was the sickening message that "greeted" me on my phone as I stepped out of the train on my way home after work. Soon, the buzzing world around me suddenly seems so silent. Confused, shocked, anguish, anxiety.... all sorts of emotions formed and erupted within me. I desperately tried to call for clarification/explanation but the rogue ID refused to pick up the call......

And so it begins my renovation with 2 tales which I hope to share with all. Through this blog, I hope that my unfortunate experience can serve as a learning lesson for you, especially those about to engage into their first ever renovation journey. To be honest, I thought long and hard on whether to write this T-blog but eventually decided to pen this abnormal blog to raise awareness.

Obviously, this is not a live and progressive blog entry as I've already picked up the broken pieces and renovation is now near the end stage. Till date, my parents are still in the dark about the matter as I do not want to cause unnecessary stress to them. Hence, I apologized that I am unable to share pics of my renovation for fear that it gets recognize by fellow friends/relatives and may lead to my parents finding out.

The rogue ID responsible for this scam is Ng Chun Kiat Ben who is the ID and boss of Behome Design Concept. I do not think it is necessary to censor the rogue ID's name and firm since as of now, the company is already de-registered with ACRA while he is now an undischarged bankrupt. There was a post on a local fb page but it was since taken down. Anyway, here is the screenshot of the post.

Well, Mr Ng Chun Kiat, I just have this to say to you. Karma is a ***** and you will reap what you sow eventually.

[ZzzMonster 7]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Hope all is well now with your current contractor.

[Ceestar 0]

We started our ID hunting only after we have collected our keys. Prior to that, we have drawn out the list of wants and don't wants and with this list, we started speaking to different IDs for quotation. We spoke to 3 IDs and the quotation we received were very much comparable. So the decision to engage comes down to rapport with the 3 IDs. Unfortunately, this was the area where the rogue ID Ben was a real standout. He was a really slick and smooth talker and his apparent customer service display was excellent. Out of the 3 IDs, Ben shown extreme eagerness and was fast with providing the quotations. He closely followed up with each amendment and questions promptly. We requested to view both completed and work in progress projects to check on workmanship and this was also completed satisfactorily. Nothing looked amiss and eventually, we signed with him, pay up the 20% first payment and entrusted our unit to him for the renovation works.

And the nightmare starts..............

While waiting for the first draft of the 3D drawings, Ben began to arrange the electrician to start off the electrical works. And it is with this pretext, he started to ask for the 40% 2nd payment since he had already "started work" as stated in the contract. Seeing that work has indeed began, we complied with his request. The 1st and 2nd payment would made up 60% of the total quotation. At this point of time, Ben is still acting normal and replying messages promptly.

Mistake and learning point 1 : Try to keep the 1st and 2nd payments to a max of 50% of the quotation. If possible, breakdown the payment of the 2nd payment into smaller progressive stages.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Ceestar

[Ceestar 0]

We waiting for about 1 month to have a first glimpse of the 3D design drawings. As in most cases, it needed changes as it was quite far off from what we wanted. After communicating the changes to be made, we again waited for the revised drawings. But 1 week, then 2 weeks then 3 weeks passed but no news of the revised drawings. Each week, when we en-quired with Ben on the status, his standard reply: "Will send to you by weekend". Finally a month later from the first draft, we gotten the revised 2nd draft. The excuse given by Ben for the delay was " My draftsman went reservist". At this point of time, electrical work has stopped and there was no further progress, seemingly, it was because of awaiting for design finalization.

There was to be another round of drawing revising ding dong for a further 1 month, and it was during this time that Ben started acting strangely. He began to take more than half a day to reply messages. About 2 weeks later, I received a message from him stating that he needed a personal favor from us. He claimed that his brother is dying of cancer and he needed money to fund the medical cost first while he put up claim from insurance. He asked for advance payment for the 3rd payment of the contract. Warning sirens were ringing in our head. We politely rejected his request with the reason that we had paid up 60% payment with little work done. We do not want to run the risk of making the advance payment. Ben accepted our decision and spoke no further of the topic. At the same time, he arranged the false ceiling work to commence in an attempt to appease our very apparent displeasure at the renovation pace.

Another 2 weeks flew by and we finally finalized the design drawings together with the laminate selection. We were thinking that from this point, things will move faster but how wrong we were! A week later, Ben text us saying his brother passed away from cancer and he needed 1 week off to take care of the funeral. *Sigh, delays and delays*

Mistake and learning point 2 : Heighten up your awareness and constantly monitor your ID/contractor behavioral. Unjustified delays and loads of excuses are signs of abnormality. Never agreed to advance payment arrangement for personal issue matters.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Ceestar

[Ceestar 0]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Hope all is well now with your current contractor.

Thanks ZzzMonster. My current contractor is like god-send to save my shattered world !

[Ceestar 0]

So after his 1 week "off", first thing he text us is " Hi XXX, can you transfer the 3rd payment for carpentry material"

Seriously!? Asking for payment again!? By now, we are already very pissed off and immediately arranged for a sit down talk face to face to sort out the situation. In the meeting, made known our displeasure. Also demanded a progress chart as well as a detailed carpentry measurement drawings. Till then, no 3rd payment from us.

Well, Mr professional time-delay Ben then took another freaking 2 weeks just to produce a simple project gantt chart and a further 2 weeks for the carpentry drawings. So Lo and behold, another 1 month flew by. With the project gantt chart, we were hoping to use it to keep the renovation on track but well, no surprises, it was all just for show! None of the stated activities such as painting, shower kerbs etc took place at all. Again we hounded Ben for an explanation. This is what he had to say.

"oh..the gantt chart is just a guideline. While we wait for carpentry to be done up at workshop, these small small jobs can be done and completed without problem"

"My tiler is rushing for another job cos need to handover before this date"

"You have not make the 3rd payment. My carpenter need the money to buy material. You don't pay, he is not going to start work"

Perhaps again needed to get back our trust on him, after some lambasting from us, Ben started to arrange for the bases and kerbs as well as first coat painting to be done. At this point of time, even while we were furious about the whole thing, the "delay delay delay" tactic is working its magic on our minds. No matter how reluctant we are, we are already mentally drained and eventually we gave in to his repeated request for the 3rd payment......

And so, we were told that the carpentry will need at least 2-3 weeks for fabrication. 2.5 weeks went past. In the middle of the night, receive a text msg from Ben that he needed to update me on the renovation and requested to meet up the next morning. In that meeting, Ben again dropped a big bombshell. Apparently, he claimed that there was an unfortunate miscommunication between him and his carpenter and carpentry fabrication had not started at all!! Wow, amazing right!?

Then Mr Oscar award winning actor Ben started to spin a super duper tale that he is currently going through a rough patch with his wife and she is threatening to do a divorce with him. He tried to justify the "miscom" mistake to this matter as he could not concentrate blah blah blah blah. He promised to get the renovation back on track and ask for a week to settle his personal problem. He volunteered to rewrite the contract with a new handover date and add in a clause of daily compensation for each day delay.

Well, all this are just plain bullsh*ting cos a week later, we received the text message that was shown in the first post of this blog.

Mistake and learning point 3 : Always request a renovation progress chart before renovation starts. Add in a delay compensation clause to it. For carpentry payment, advisable to do it on progressive payment. Only when the piece of carpentry is up, then pay for that. While it is perfectly normal to feel frustrated and stressed by repeated delays, try your best not to cave in to the pressure.

[Ceestar 0]

That very night felt like an eternity. We couldn't sleep. We don't know what to do. We don't know what we can do.

So we were scammed of our hard earned reno money, but what can we do?

File police report? CASE? Small Claim Tribunal? Well, all I can say is that we been there and done that and I can firmly tell you the bad news is none of these nearly helps!

1) Police Report - The first thing we did the next day was to head down to the nearest NPC to file a police report against the rogue ID Ben. However, from the on-start, the officer made his point crystal clear. Unless we have concrete evidence to prove that Ben has clear intention to cheat, they won't be able to bring criminal charges to him. In other words, this is just a breach of contract and will be classify as civil lawsuit with which we need to engage our own lawyers to pursue the matter through civil laws.

2) CASE - Useless, called them and they just push me to Small Claims Tribunal

3) Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) - So we went to SCT and file a claim. At SCT, the officer gave a brief explanation on the terms and conditions for making a claim. Frankly speaking, unless the case is a dispute with the other party still in business or contactable, there is still a glimmer of hope to getting some portion of the money back. For our case where Ben has essentially went into hiding and declaring bankrupt, there is little to nothing that SCT can help. For e.g, to claim more than 10K but capped at 20K, you gotta get the other party's approval. Seriously, if we can get the other party to agree, I wouldn't need to go SCT isn't it?? And even if the claim is less than 10K, the claimant need to personally hand the consultation order to the other party else SCT won't acknowledge and will just keep adjourning the consultation dates. And if if if you do get the wining decision but the other party has nothing to his name, you still get nothing.

So. as you can see, we are pretty much screwed and I have to say that the ordeal has really opened up our eyes to lots of glaring loopholes in the system for scammers to take advantage. Needless to say, we pretty much lost our faith in the system.

Mistake and learning point 4 : Actually, this is just a personal opinion. Don't get your hopes too high to recover scammed money. The chances are near to zero for well planned and executed scam ploys.

[Ceestar 0]

Staring at the empty and little done unit really make us sick. Where we used to look forward visiting the unit and checking out the renovation progress, now it became a dread to even step into the unit. The place just feel so cold, so solemn and so dead. But renovation still needs to carry on and we just want to get it done and be over with.

And so the 2nd tale of my renovation journey begins.

We clearly do not need a new ID now as we already have the designs and drawings. So we started to reach out to recommended contractors in Renotalk to take up the job.

Nicholas of Renoguyz was one of the few that we reached out for. The meetup with him at the unit was an interesting one. And true to the various legends in Renotalk, Nic was every bit of the odd-ball contractor that many have described.

Shorts/Bermudas - Checked

Sandals/Slippers - Checked

Faded T-shirt - Checked

Sleepy and droopy face- Checked

Seriously, if you are one that judge by first impression, Nic would have flunk every possible aspects!

For us, we already kinda expected it as we had read some of the reviews on him in Renotalk. After a brief recounting of our mishap to him, we got down to business. Nic whipped out his measuring tape, paper and pen and started measuring and noting down the measurement of the various carpentry works in our original design. Next came his Iphone calculator, press press press and tada! The quotation for the job was laid out infront of us! We were really impressed as this was the first time we encountered instant quotation. Knowing our plight, Nic also gave his opinion to do away several items to help us save money. He also encouraged us to go direct to material/service suppliers or join group buys to save more money.

That night, we evaluated Nic's quotation which was fair. We liked his frankness in speaking out what he thinks. Despite his blurred outlook, he knew what he was doing and talking.

In the next few days, we called and confirmed Nic to help us finish the renovation of our unit.

[bykaraanne 30]

I met Nick and he's said that people say that he's a savior! And he probably was to you.

I didn't go with him in the end, but I get what you're saying. Thanks for sharing the entire experience, and still waiting to read more.

As someone starting the reno journey, I really feel for you guys.

Sending loads of prayers and good vibes...

[ruili1980 0]

Hi Ceestar sorry to hear about the ordeal in the first tale . Do you mind sharing with me nicholas 's contact?

Thank you

[ruili1980 0]

my email is nellie.chua@yahoo.com.sg

[Ceestar 0]

I met Nick and he's said that people say that he's a savior! And he probably was to you.

I didn't go with him in the end, but I get what you're saying. Thanks for sharing the entire experience, and still waiting to read more.

As someone starting the reno journey, I really feel for you guys.

Sending loads of prayers and good vibes...

Thanks for the good words and wishes. You got an interesting renovation project!

Looking forward to your updates! Wishing you a smooth and enjoyable renovation journey!

[Ceestar 0]

Hi Ceestar sorry to hear about the ordeal in the first tale . Do you mind sharing with me nicholas 's contact?

Thank you

Hi ruili1980,

Thanks for your kind words. Have PMed you the contact!

[Ceestar 0]

First and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere apologies to Nic's customers who were affected by this sweet gesture (See below pic) to us from him.

Yup thats right. We didn't make any special request but Nic really gave us a pleasant surprise by offering to let us "Cut Queue" for the carpentry works so we can end this renovation ordeal ASAP and move on. Seriously, we were really touched by his kind gesture. Again, I really need to apologize to those whose renovation progress at that time were somewhat slowed down because of us .

So, during the laminate selection, our initial intention was to follow the original selection. All was fine till it came to the kitchen where he was dropping hints that the color scheme is way off with the rest of the house. We didn't pick up the signals initially and was insistent on the original design. Then it came, that trademark rolleyes action! *He does this subconsciously whenever he had a different opinion* And in accordance to his "honest and straight" character, Nic literally spelt out that the original color scheme is ugly and totally out of sync, if we insist on it, don't regret later. Well, some homeowners may not appreciate such strong choice of words and would probably be upset about this "Kuai lan" contractor *LOL* but it was precisely such frank feedback that will jolt you to take a step back and re-evaluate the decision. We did exactly that and eventually followed Nic's alternate suggested color scheme.

No surprise, he nailed it dead right. From then onwards, we would always sought his opinion first on all matters that requires design/color selection decision.

Infact, just a few days ago, we still consulted him for his advice on a particular bedsheet that we want to buy.

Guess what was his reply? Just 2 simple words - AUNTIE DESIGN!!

[Sunnyshannie 0]

Hi can pm me nic contacts? Thanks