On average, it found that Brits are anticipating losing £1,574 each, with 15% of adults expecting to fall victim to scammers online at some point.

The study also found something of a disconnect between how people expect to act, and how they really do. It found that more than half of us (53%) say we would change a password after a security breach was detected, the firm’s internal data found that in reality 94% of us take no action after a breach is flagged.

What’s more, many of us do little to make life harder for the scammers in the first place. More than half (55%) of us admit to using personal information in our passwords that might be easy to guess, such as a child’s name, their birthday or pets’ names. An incredible two-thirds admitted to posting their secure personal information, such as passwords and memorable words, publicly on social media.

ClearScore has launched a new service, Protect Plus, aimed at tackling the risks of identity theft, with features including dark web scanning for passwords, breaches and personal information, as well as credit report alerts in the event of unexpected activity on your report.

Surge in scams

There has been no shortage of scam activity of late. 

In recent weeks warnings have been issued over a spike in text scams where the scammer poses as a bank, while there has also been a surge in reports of National Insurance scams.

However, there remain questions over whether the authorities are doing enough to tackle the prevalence of scams. For example, a study by Which? found that online scammers are ‘running riot’ due to inaction from the likes of Google and Facebook, while the government has been criticised for failing to include online scams in its Online Safety Bill.