AVOID!!!

I'll start by saying that I have used Sentinel a couple of times in the past and have found the service to be very good. With that being said I always believe that the true test of a companies customer service happens whens things don't go according to plan and in this instance my experience has been very poor.

I collected my car keys on Sunday and was directed to the end of row 11. Whilst walking down the row, passing all the other vehicles parked neatly in the allocated bays I noticed that my car was not in an allocated parking spot and was parking alone against the perimeter fence on the exit road. This instantly raised my suspicions and rightly so, a quick inspection of the vehicle found extensive kerbing damage to my front alloy wheel and the driver had clearly parked the car tight to the back fence in the hope that I wouldn't notice the damage. Note that the booking T&C's clearly state that any damage must be reported before you leave the car park so be sure to do a thorough check.

Back at the front desk I was met by site manager who quickly grabbed his camera and we headed back out to the car. On the way over he explained that all vehicles are pictured on arrival which I found quite impressive and assumed would make the following process very simple. I directed him to the damaged wheel and he took several pictures, he also took pictures of the rear wheel which had existing kerb damage but I wanted to check the imagery to make sure no further damage had occurred due to the extent of the kerbing to the front wheel.

Back at the front desk he brought up the pictures which are actually just stills of the CCTV images of you driving your vehicle in to the car park at the barrier. These stills are obviously not taken at close range and would unlikely ever detail any acute damage.

The first image was of the rear wheel with the site manager being very quick to point out the existing kerbing damage which i explained that I already knew about but wanted to check for any new damage. I couldn't see anything obvious and agreed that the damage was all pre-existing so we moved on to the image of the offending front wheel ... this is where the tone changed. The image clearly showed no obvious damage however I was met with an accusation that because my rear wheel was already damaged, my front wheel must also have already been damaged .... very unprofessional. I insisted that the damage had occurred during Sentinels possession and also that the damage could not be seen on the CCTV image upon arrival. At this point he advised me that he would need to view the actual CCTV footage and disappeared to the back office. Why this couldn't be viewed on the screen we were already using I am unsure but at this point the process was becoming even more evasive.

Upon return I was told that the CCTV footage was inconclusive and that the situation would need to be escalated to the owner who wasn't available at that very time. I left my e-mail address and mobile telephone number and requested a copy of the pictures and CCTV footage be e-mailed to me. He assured me that I would be contacted within 1-2 days and feeling less that satisfied with how the whole situation has been handled, i left. It's now 3 days later and I have received zero phone calls or e-mails from Sentinel leaving me now contemplating my next course of action.

My advice to anyone thinking of using Sentinel would be to consider the additional cost of using a more premium onsite parking service and weigh that up against the thought of returning from a relaxing holiday to be met with a situation such as this.