Prestige Design Studio Pte Ltd should be a good ID company. Their project manager, Jayden, is a knowledgeable, responsible and helpful guy. The contractors under Prestige are very good in workmanship, such as carpenter, plumber, tiler and electrician. They are all professionals in their roles, in our opinion according to their work done.
Unfortunately the company had assigned Ms. Xenia See to be our project’s consultant/site supervisor/ID. She was irresponsible, non- responsive, and in some cases she made decision without getting homeowner’s agreement / confirmation / permission and no notification/update given. Like the electrical plan, she never gave me to see and confirm. When things went wrong, she certainly would miss in action for a period of time, she would try to push the responsibility back to the homeowner, and waited for the project manager to settle for her. This was her usual practice during the past 3 months. Xenia always said that she was doing admin and not operation. She worked from home, no need to go to office because she was a part-timer/freelancer only. She can do work only when she is free. I wonder why the company put her (an admin staff) as our project’s consultant / site supervisor /ID? No wonder when our neighbor downstairs got problem at the very beginning and called her, she did not pick up their call. So our neighbor referred to HDB and let them contacted the homeowner in the end. In my opinion, she totally does not know the role of an ID, and she definitely was not customer-oriented.
I feel that she was not knowledgeable as an ID. Even the drawings came out, when someone like carpenter, asked about any of her design, she would keep quiet because she did not know how to answer, and asked me instead. How would I know? I was not the designer. When we asked her about something she was in-charge, she would say ‘I don’t know’. Like the installation of the ceiling fan and the LED light, she gave the electrician the wrong drawings, and could only be installed correctly until the 3rd time after I verified clearly with the project manager on site who directly gave the instruction to the electrician in person. Actually three of us had been verified once on site on the 2nd time, but in the end she still gave the wrong drawing to the electrician.
When we considered using tinted film on the windows for privacy purpose, she argued with me many times and she insisted that tinted film could not see through when the light was on, so I should put it on. But in the end we knew that she was wrong, so we decided to remove the film because it was not what we wanted, and we still had to pay for it.
For the window film installation, Xenia sent me photos of hand-written invoices (12474 & 12504) and asked me to paynow to an account, $420 and $80. I noted that the account name was not the same as the name in the invoice, Archperformance Sg Pte Ltd. Instead, the account I sent to via paynow is OOI but she said that it was correct. I told her that I needed the original receipts and the invoices, she said she would get from him but since 8 July 2024 until now, she still could not pass them to me no matter how many times I reminded her in the chat group.
She did not like to listen to our feedback or requests. She either kept quiet in the chat group or just replied “let me check” but no further action or replies.
However, she was very active and excited to bring us to the shop in Balestier to buy bathroom/kitchen accessories, roller blinds, lightings…..etc. She gave us the address and asked us to go ourselves. Every time she just stayed in the shop and waited for the copy of our purchase orders to calculate the commission. Please note that the staff of this company would not offer their client a lift so easily anyhow, maybe depend on the total amount of the project, I guess.
Before we signed the contract, I had asked them about the payment terms. The project manager explained to us that there were 6 payments. The final payment will be 5% of the project (retention), we could hold this 5% until we felt satisfied after the completion of the whole project including all touch up had been done.
But when I paid them the 5th payment, Xenia immediately asked me to pay the final 5% on the following day. But the project has not been completed at that time, so I asked her to finish all remaining jobs first. Then she was no show the following day when someone came to do installation. As a result, I was the only one to stay there and follow up the mess because she gave the wrong measurement to the salesperson. I don’t know who did the measurement when they met up, Xenia or the salesperson? How comes 4 pieces of the work out of 11 pieces got wrong measurement. Amazing!
One of the most important thing is that both Xenia and the salesperson could not give me the invoice/receipt, pdf version also didn’t have. Xenia only sent me a quotation and asked me to paynow $1000 deposit to the account. I told her that I needed both the official invoice & receipt when I paid the balance. She said she would arrange with the salesperson. But I could not receive any till now including the paid deposit.
I really do not know what happens to the company and Xenia. I settled all payments she asked for but she refused/ignored to give me the original official invoices and receipts no matter how many times I made my requests in the chat group. Whenever I asked, she just said “ok” or “let me check”. I asked her to pass to me when we met next time, but she never mentioned or did not give me even one invoice or receipt whenever we met. Delayed and delayed, no action was taken.
Luckily, this project still got one Project Manager, Jayden, to oversee, but limited to some operation aspects. We are grateful to him for his assistance at all times. He would help to find out solutions whenever needed. Thank you very much for his support through this renovation journey.
Actually we chose this company to be our ID mainly because of Jayden. He came together with Xenia on our first meet-up and he had shown to us his capabilities. However, we did not know this project was only under Xenia’s name in the end. We were not given any other persons’ email addresses to contact except Xenia. We cannot find any place to make complaints or enquiries. You could not find any email address in their website also. Maybe this is the way how Prestige can avoid receiving any complaints about their staff.
When the gate had been installed, nobody updated us who held the keys. When I asked about the keys in the chat group, nobody gave replies. Jayden said that he would check with Xenia. However, no replies were given from Xenia until we mentioned that we needed to report to the police if keys were lost. It’s really a hard time to get back the keys from Xenia only until when she received the 5th payment.
Starting from the mid of the project, I needed to go back every alternate day to check the progress. Then I took photos and videos to report back to them. Especially the recent month, I went back every day to check and report. So many discrepancies and I have to follow up every day myself.
For money wise matters, Jayden definitely would not interrupt. This company does not have Finance Department for us to make enquiry about payments and receipts. Everything about admin or Finance must go through Ms. Xenia because this was her project and she was the admin. That is why we still cannot get back the invoices and receipts from this company till now. We are wondering why Prestige will pick a part-time admin staff, Xenia, to be the project’s consultant, who even cannot fulfill her admin job properly, how she can take over a project? When talking about handling the project, how comes she did not know to tell the door supplier to add a door viewer on the main door, alternatively, she said that the homeowner did not need it. When we asked her whether the door supplier had submitted the fire-rated door certificate application or not, she did not give any replies, so difficult for her to tell us a simple answer: yes or no. Actually we have the right to know whether the application of the fire-rated door certificate has been submitted or not. They should be able to provide us the proof upon request if their door supplier has done so.
What Xenia rushed for is our last payment, the 5% retention sum, before completion of the project. She forgot she still owed us the receipts and invoices of the company and the two transactions I paid to Archperformance Sg Pte Ltd (OOI) that she had agreed to give us which I had reminded her 3 times before.
Asking me to wait for the receipt of the last payment, do you think I can get it? The old ones I still could not get till now, how can I get the receipt of the new payment? I wonder how long I shall wait to get the official invoices and receipts for all the transactions from her/the company that I have paid.
At this moment, what we concern is the fire-rated main door, whether it is fire-rated or not? Many other friends and colleagues told us that the door should be made in batch, and it should have been certified with a label and a certificate before delivery and installation. And in my case, they even could not show us the proof of application and avoid talking about this fire-rated door. At the same time, why they are so rush to urge us to pay the 5% retention sum to close the file? What is hidden behind?
