RAN LIFSHITZ, TOM TISHBEY and LIOR BEN ZUR swindled $240,000 from my 62 yo husband and me for a renovation contract they knew they could not fulfill. Chi Renovation misrepresented themselves as a full service design build firm. Tom Tishbey introduced himself as a trained engineer when he quoted the project. I realized over the year of them burrowing in my home and refusing to leave, that he and Ran were both just salesmen. Neither are licensed interior designers, architects or even contractors. I even question if they actually live indoors in America with their limited knowledge of designing or building. I relied heavily on all the 5 star glowing reviews all over the internet on this company, and neglected to see if these are just bots. I recently found that Tom Tishbey is a supposed ‘entrepreneur’ with alleged $1 million in investments. This would have certainly made me think twice about his intentions if he had a successful entrepreneur company why would he be doing sales for a renovation company in a small chicago suburb. Tom Tishbey seemed knowledgeable and accommodating, until the project started. Tom kept trying to get me to buy everything before the project started, especially buying the kitchen cabinets and extra design hours. The contract already included 2 design hours that were more than enough. The kitchen cabinet designer did not want to accommodate designs I wanted or materials I needed and took weeks to even get me quotes. When I went to their showroom storefront, an upper cabinet door of their kitchen display would not even close. I felt the presentation was pressured and lackluster. The designer only had door panels and color swatches and Larry Lambert just wanted to add more mdf cabinets with high price pull outs. None of their presentations were 3d color as they claim they are in their contract. I was looking for an Property Brothers presentation and received a 1980’s -1 dimensional rollout in a small suburban storefront in a strip mall. It seems after this bonus revenue of designer and cabinets dried up, Tom Tishbey became a bit more desperate to chisel more money out of our pockets. He kept pushing their storage services and purchasing materials through their vendors, I declined. The contract started out at 230, we changed items to bring the price down to our budget of 205,000 before hiring the company. This was under the assumption that we were getting a licensed interior designer and a quality skilled large group of contractors and credit for materials. I have had this in prior renovations with architects. None of this was included. This high price was for (questionable on licensed) electrical, plumbing, subpar drywall, and unskilled part time laborers. Since we did not use the designer, we received Ran Lifshitz as our project manager. They represented the Ran was new to the company and in school for something. I guess this was to excuse his absence of managing the project. Ran was nice and reasonable at first in contrast to Tom , who was always looking for a new ideas to generate a change order for more money. This reasonable Ran changed as the year waned on. As I have said in several posts about their lack of cleaning, disrespect for your property, no desire to empty garbage, especially at the end of the day, yet alone when your house looks like an episode of HOARDERS. They through drywall and framing on my built ins, my fragile light fixture boxes, and bathroom items I was saving. There was no garbage area, the whole condo was unbearable. I almost slit my thigh open trying to navigate through the dumpster fire they represented as a construction site. To this day, I am still covered in construction dust after cleaning the home twice. It’s no surprise with these beginnings that this was never going to go well and that most of my items would end up missing or damaged in the build phase. I felt this hesitance to empty garbage was a tactic to extort us for more money. They demolished, then kept making suggestions on changes, we would agree. Then the work stopped. Tom as the salesman he is had to get a new contract and drawings generated to monetize these changes. This took at least 2 months after they amassed a house full of trash. As I stated prior, this was the first time we felt under duress to enter into a new contract costing us $30,000 more dollars. This was also the first time Tom attempted to generate more money from us while billing us for items already agreed upon in the initial contract. We asked him to combine this change order with the original contract and clearly outline credits that we have removed. Amazing that to move a wall costs $3,000, but credit for this same wall is $200. We added prefinished flooring that we bought and had delivered including glue and subfloor. They removed unfinished floors for 1/2 the unit with refinishing. That only removed $7,000, but Chi Renovation still charged us $24,000 for the plywood, subfloor and installation of prefinished floors.. The atrocities of them parading amateur laborers for craftsmen pricing went on the entire year when they did show up. It was torture coming through the unit finding nothing in place that you spent months brainstorming with Tom. I wanted to believe that he possibly did not understand English more than this was just a HUSTLE. On the second call out of ‘*** are you all doing’ about 6 months in, it became more clear that they never had the skill or desire to do this in depth project. Their was just malicious intent of getting as much money from me as possible to make them do any work. When all that money was paid, they stopped pretending to care. This was like being abused by a spouse and having his friends rehab your house that he tore up while abusing you. Chi Renovation had the attitude and work hours that they were doing this as a charity side project while fleecing me to the tune of a new construction 1 bedroom downtown condo ( several were built and sold while I waited on this abuse to run its course). Viewing the wreckage of my home, I regret every minute of every interaction. As it dragged on for a year and I continued to shell out more money (than most doctors make in a year), Tom and Ran kept parroting that this was all my fault for not giving them more money for more scam products. They could never admit that they had no skills, never measured anything, no manpower and felt no legal obligation to fulfill any portion of the contract in a manner that they advertise. Never hire Chi Renovation, Tom Tishbey ,Ran Lifshitz or Lior Ben Zur. I hope that no one else will ever be hoodwinked as I was. I will be seeking counseling for the criminal atrocity they inflicted upon me. I now am trying to rebuild by removing 27 layers of dust, spackle, grout and glue from my new floors, walls, and furniture. I have to hire a competent LICENSED electrician and plumber to finish installing items that I paid for and never received and repair items that they broke. I will be filing a police report for my missing track light and light switches and I have complained to the Attorney General and Better Business Bureau.