If you’ve gotten yourself buried under a mountain of debt — namely credit card debt — you’ve likely seen products and services advertised which claim to be able to help you. They might claim to help you pay down the debt faster, save money in the process, or push themselves as tools that will ultimately help you improve your credit file. But should you waste your time, and money, on these credit repair kits and related things? In most cases, no.  

Let’s briefly talk about what credit repair kits usually are, and why they’re probably not worth your attention.

What Are Credit Repair Kits?

Credit repair kits are often in the form of books or they might be a collection of forms and templates. The basic idea is simple. Credit repair kits promise to help you get out of credit card debt by giving you the templates you need to deal with creditors — such as form letters for filing disputes or making new repayment offers.

Are Credit Repair Kits Worth the Money?

Look. If you have the money to spend, put it towards paying down your debt instead of buying one of these kits. In most cases they aren’t worth the money. Why? Because what they offer are things you can already find for free online.

More importantly, you might even be able to get better examples of templates and form letters you can use to contact creditors and credit reporting agencies on the Web. That’s because people occasionally share their real letters — the ones that worked with your specific creditor. It’s worth the time it would take to do a search.

The primary benefit of credit repair kits isn’t that they’ll help you get out of debt. They don’t do anything you can’t already do on your own — for free. The benefit is that they compile those resources in one place so you don’t have to take the time to search. But in the current search engine-driven world, it doesn’t really take much time to find the resources you need, and for someone who wants to save money and get out of debt, that’s likely your better option.

Are there exceptions to the rule? Is there ever a good time to buy one of these credit repair kits? Sure. If you do the search online first and can’t find the kinds of forms and templates or other resources you’re interested in, then go ahead and see if a credit repair kit on the market happens to offer the things you need.

Credit counselling services are a similar ploy. They try to sell you on a service that will help you get out of debt or fix your credit history. Can they help? Some. But in reality they really just do the same things you could do yourself — and you’ll pay for that. Again, it’s not the best option if you need to save money.

If you truly want to get out of credit card debt, the best thing you can do is pay more than your minimum and call to negotiate with your credit card company if your current terms have become unreasonable due to unforeseen hardship.