IDISID

Warning to all those looking for an ID: STAY AWAY from this guy - Ivan Oh (IDISID). He is scam one-man show and exactly the ID that you hear of in renovation nightmares. Talks a big talk but it’s just all sales. Locks you in with an expensive design fee to start with, shows you plain designs and doesn’t give you what’s promised, and then proceeds to spin stories to try to bleed you Full of excuses. Cannot deliver on deadlines. Goes MIA - Charges a significant fee for work he’s incapable of - Untrustworthy - Compulsive liar even after you called him out on his BS (Seriously his chain of ‘explanations’ should be awarded an Oscar) - Shoddy works. Cannot project manage Don’t believe the things you see on his website and FB. Stay away from him. ————————————————————————————————————- He is a one man show and pitches himself as a boutique interior designer. Sure he is a great salesman and will butter you up with all his ideas and claim to work in your best interest. BUT ultimately, he cannot deliver or meet deadlines. This has nothing to do with the current COVID situation, we are writing this much further down the road as we only recently found time to do so after the mayhem and inconvenience he has caused due to his major incompetence and untrustworthiness. Our experience with him started in June’19 with initial discussions, and ended in Jan’20 after he failed to meet a self-imposed deadline which was the final straw. He came as a recommendation from a friend and we went down to his studio and thought he looked legit. We actually liked the guy at the start - which I suppose was part of his sales tactics. During the discussion phases, there were warning flags with him at times taking weeks to respond to design plans and coming to us for updates. Reasons were given such as how he was down with appendicitis, he had to go home to Malaysia a few times as his father was sick etc. We didn’t want to be unreasonable as these things do happen so we gave him the benefit of the doubt and continued to trust him. But nevertheless, we had to chase him for updates and pick up on details that he left out - not what you’d expect to do when you’ve paid a significant fee for this ID to project manage and do his job. He charges a $5300 “design fee” for his “3D-rendered drawings, space planning, electrical, lighting plans etc” at the start. These drawings and plans never came to us. We also realised eventually that these drawings were extremely basic and not some advanced 3D drawings. I suppose this is how he gets you hooked in, by committing a significant sum at the start where you are less likely to look elsewhere (even though he claims that he will give you these drawings if you want to go elsewhere after). Then before the start of the works, he charges you a 20% premium on top of the works quotation, stating that this is his professional fee for “on-site services” which also hardy took place. But when the works started, we soon found out that this was a hoax, looking back in retrospect. There was no work schedule, none of the electrical and lighting plans were confirmed with us. The works started and proceed with till about midway with some minor hiccups which we still gave him the benefit of the doubt for. We tried to be as diligent as we could and went down frequently to check on the place. Suddenly around Christmas 2019, he disappeared and was MIA for about 10 days. All works had stopped. When we finally got hold of him, he claimed that his absence was due to him getting H1N1 flu - another “reason” for his disappearance. Still trying to seem reasonable, we believed him and pressed him for a deadline for the completion. He claimed and kept insisting that he could get the place completed in 1 week by CNY, even though it seemed unlikely to us and we questioned him on this. Lo and behold, 3 days before the handover, he claims that his carpenter’s father had suddenly passed away and hence the carpenter is dropping the project entirely and he could not meet the handover dateline. We called him out on his bullshit and asked him to show us picture of what carpentry works that has been done so far but he couldn’t show us any. The biggest insult to this was that he still had the cheek to ask us for payment as he claims that “there were more works done to our place than the 50% we’ve given him so far”. Obviously we refused and sacked him. Being first-time homeowners, we were new to this renovation thing and yes, looking back we would have done many things differently and provided more oversight. We thought that we could trust him, especially since he came us a recommendation from a friend. Despite the massive disappointment and headache having to spend extra time and money cleaning up the mess he created, we managed to get off relatively unscathed. We just want to warn others and prevent a dismal experience like the one we had: STAY AWAY FROM THIS GUY (Ivan Oh) IDISID