Spine-chilling: The nation’s top financial fears

With Halloween just around the corner, some people may agree that there are far more frightening things lurking in the shadows than ghosts and ghouls. Like a bank balance in negative figures, a phishing scam in their inbox waiting to catch them out or their wallet getting stolen, for example.

New research conducted on behalf of mortgage and loans provider Ocean Finance has revealed the country’s top financial fears:

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%

The situation respondents feared most was falling for a financial scam which resulted in 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.

Unsurprisingly, the threat of violence came top of many people’s fears. More than one in seven (15%) respondents were worried about being physically mugged for their cash. Thankfully, the number of cases of this actually happening was far lower; with one in 75 (1.5%) saying they have suffered this crime in the last 12 months.

However, the potential threat of violence was found to worry far fewer people than the thought of simply being unable to pay their bills. A quarter (25%) of respondents said they were scared of not having enough money in their account to pay their bills – and this was a fear that had come true for many people. More than one in 10 (12%) claimed that, over the past year, they had found themselves in exactly this situation.

Luckily, in many 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.

There were some cases, however, where incidences of something happening outweighed people’s fears of it – which may mean these are areas where extra care should be taken. 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. This might explain why 6.6% of respondents admitted they had been rejected for credit in the last year, despite this only being the financial fear of 3.4% of people.

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.”