President Obama's Credit Card Was Declined At NYC Restaurant

President Obama revealed an embarrassing story at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today, involving an incident that happened last month when he was dining with the First Lady. They were visiting New York while attending the UN General Assembly. The couple had a meal at Estela on Houston Street, and the President paid with his credit card. Only it was declined.

“It turned out I guess I don’t use it enough, so they thought there was some fraud going on. Fortunately, Michelle had hers,” President Obama said. “I was trying to explain to the waitress, ‘No really, I think that I’ve been paying my bills.’ So even I’m affected by this.”

Obama told this story in relation to the executive order he was signing, which is meant to help the government better protect the American people from fraud and identity theft. Both crimes are at a historic high, and its statistics grow every year as more companies and markets go digital.

The order requires federal law enforcement send compromised credentials to a nationwide "Internet Fraud Alert System.” Included is that companies that make personal data available online would now use two-factor authentication, or log-in by typing in both a password and a PIN code sent to a user's phone.

Also mandated is that government agencies are to begin introducing machines that read “chip and pin cards”; new credit cards that use an embedded microchip and a PIN code to authorize transactions in the hopes that these procedures will make it much more difficult for hackers to make counterfeit credit cards from stolen information. The president is targeting October of next year for these new procedures to be available widely by credit card companies.