Respondents most feared falling for a financial scam that led to their credit or debit card being cloned. Nearly a third (28%) of those surveyed worried about this happening to them, while 1 in 20 (6.3%) people say that they have fallen victim to this in the last 12 months. Overall, one in 10 (10%) of those surveyed revealed they had been the victim of some form of cybercrime in the last 12 months.

The second greatest fear was simply being unable to pay the bills. A quarter (25%) of respondents said they were scared of not having enough money in their account to pay their bills. This is not unfounded: more than one in 10 (12%) had found themselves in this situation over the past year.

However, in most cases people’s fears were disproportionate to the risk of them actually encountering one of their financial nightmares. While more than one in 20 (6%) were concerned about their wallet being stolen, this had only happened to 1.7% of respondents this year. But there were some areas where people should perhaps exercise more caution: For example, while just 2.1% of respondents were concerned about errors appearing on their credit file, this had actually happened to 3.2% of those asked.

Ian Williams, spokesman for Ocean, says: “Our finances play such an important role in our lives, it’s no wonder so many of us have deep-seated fears about the subject. However, there are plenty of things we can do to protect ourselves from many of these common financial fears. For example, using strong passwords and never sharing financial details will make it much harder for a fraudster to take over your account. If your fear is being rejected for credit it is good to know that you can do something about that too. This Halloween it may be worth taking the time to check there are no skeletons in the closet or errors on your credit file.”

Financial fear % of people who fear this

1 Having a debit or credit card cloned 28%
2 Not having enough cash to pay the bills 25%
3 Being physically mugged for cash 15%
4 Not being paid on time 7.2%
5 Paying the wrong person when making an online banking transaction 6.7%