Hi Folks,

Just to share my thoughts here and hope that there wont be others who will be "victime" of this guy.

I signed up with this contractor, named Ah Kam for my house renovation at Klang Valley. This renovation is just a simple renovation that includes re-roofing, re-tiling of bedrooms and car porch, concealing of the wiring and repainting of the exterior of house. The renovation started since beginning of Jan 2010 till now. I would consider this renovation a minor to a medium range of renovation that doesnt requires such a lot of time.

The renovation started January 2010 and everything seems pretty okay on the beginning phase. However, during the mid of the renovation after the re-roofing is completed, he claimed that he quoted us wrongly on the price for it. He quoted less by RM2k and which we can top it up. Since myself and my husband hopes the renovation to proceed smoothly without much hassle, so we agreed to top up this amount with an unwilling heart.

Recently, we found out from the house's neighbour that there seems to be some old roofing mixture with the new one on the backyard roof and when we approach the contractor about it, he just pretend he dont know anything about it and kept denying on his act. It proven that how dishonest this fellow is, whereby he thought by mixing the old with the new roof at the backyard's roof, wont be obvious or noticeable by us.

Another problem arised last week, whereby we planned to go for awning at one part of the car porch as recommended by this guy. However, last minute, he gave a lot of reason to support that this awning cant be installed!! Since he is the expertise and we are not, so we ask him for an alternative. He gave us an advise by saying we should have something similar to our neighbour and we agreed to let him proceed.

Suprise, suprise..... I was at my new house one afternoon and I found out that my contractor was installing an awning that is having the different design and different size as what my neighbour had. When I called him up to questioned about why everything is different from what we agreed, he only informed us that he cant have the similar one with our neighour. I'm so pissed out with him so I get another advise from another contractor whether is it possible to have the similar one with my neighour and the contractor said "of course, it is possible" !!! It again proven that, the contractor that I signed up with is not honest in his work!!!

How can a contractor change his mind on the design before he got the approver from the owner? This guy really make me so frustrated and when I questioned him that he should come to us before he installed it and he just gave all sort of nonsense reasons.

Just a cent of advise to those that are looking for contractor for your house renovation, never ever sign up with this fellow with the named of Ah Kam. He is from Puchong Perdana and driving a silver Matrix. His unprofessional way of doing things really pissed me off and now, we are thinking of changing contractor althought we need to incurr more money !!!!

This post has been edited by Babygal23: Apr 2 2010, 11:57 AM

Klang valley,loads of bu||5hiters contractor

It's great that you share this kind of stories. Sad to say, there is no rules saying that a contractor must be honest.

i.e., a contractor can quote us for a 110 bucks power socket but in the end, he got us those 80 bucks one. We can't really go to the shop and buy because these contractors buy in volume and they might be old buddies, while new faces like us won't get a rate close to them.

And also, be good to your contractor, nothing is worse than a pissed contractor renovating our house.

most of them are like this, usually sure got amount to add during renovation, usually they give cheaper products, just pray it is not a lot cheaper product. i'm sure you signed him because he is cheaper if he is not, then he is an axehole.

however, the roof part is overboard. you might want to disclose his contact number for fellow lyn to avoid him.

Hi Guys,

I do understand that normally the quotation is not the final price as sometimes we do add in additional items to the list. This is totally understandable.

However, being dishonest and unprofessional are characters that is totally unacceptable!!! We are so nice and flexible to him, never ever been harsh in our sentence althought i feel like doing so but my hubby kept on hinting me to be nice...... What else can I do? He really thought that he can bully us as we are soft from the surface..... this is really bad....

His contact 012-5366683....

how much u still owe him? how much he charge you for the whole thing?

We still owe him around RM5k only, the whole renovation comes out to be around RM50k...

a lot of con man. i also kena con before by a man name STEVEN LIEW from Puchong.

don pay anymore monies until things done to your satisfaction.

mind to list down the reno work?

Hi,

Major renovation work listed down in my thread.

There are some minor thingy as well, for example, installation of the down lights and drop down lights, repainting of the grills and conceal of wiring.

Hope u got a clearer pic now.

agree with Tohsan... dont pay him anymore untill his work completed with satisfaction... btw thanks for sharing

Some they require payment up front to cover for the raw materials which they buy.
Unless we are really close to the contractor, then only they are willing to finish everything then only collect money.
Or else, the contractor is also afraid that we will disappear once they have finished renovating.

i still think its better to withold the balance payment rather than pay them all becos contractor have the tendency to drop things and run as soon as they recover their last part of payment leaving the work unfinish.

This post has been edited by Tohsan: Apr 2 2010, 04:10 PM

Usually before the start of the renovation, the payment issues should have been agreed upon.
Easiest is 50% mid of the reno phase, and remaining 50% after the reno is done, fair and square.

It is a headache to get problematic contractor.

emm but the house is still there wor... hard for house owner to run away hehehe... house owner also scare the contractor to come kacau lo lol

yeap coz this contractor very problematic....


yes... good idea~~~

u don pay 50% tats too risky, you go by work progress. You pay only what is done.

Then u should also buy your own material, tat way u can choose the kind of quality u r looking for. I have done that with my contractor. I will top up whatever the contractor agree on and get a better material & quality.

Usually what I did was sign a contract. List down the areas need to be completed before payment made. Gradual payments done as work progressed. I usually withold the 10% until 6months to 1yr later. Need to withold the 10% until rainy season comes especially for the roof or the wall crack lines appearing after a few months.

This post has been edited by newbie99: Apr 2 2010, 05:03 PM

yeap progress payment is a very secure method... need to find material which is good quality... that need bit knowledge... for someone like me not really good in this... maybe need to ask when purchase at hardware / material shops...

depends on what material..
things like tiles, home appliances, we can choose and buy ourselves.
stuff like paint, plugs, we can go and survey the price and tell them what to buy.. make sure they don't quote us more expensive then.
stuff like air-cond tubes, electric wires, these can only be provided by them, coz we do not know the length needed and the type needed.

10% - Agreement / start work
30% - Half way
50% - Finish
10% - Completion/satisfactory