(Newswire.net — October 19, 2014) — No matter how elite a restaurant in Manhattan might be, it is usual to see US President and First Lady among guests. Something even more unusual occurred when President Obama’s credit card that was turned down when he tried to pay at one New York eatery.
First Lady Michelle was forced to pick up the tab while Obama insistedha that he really has been paying his bills.
“It turned out I guess I don’t use it enough, so they thought there was some fraud going on. I was trying to explain to the waitress,” Obama said ‘No really, I think that I’ve, uh, been paying my bills.’ So even I’m affected by this,” he made a witty remark.
Although the president said the incident happened in New York, he didn’t specify where. However, it was previously reported that the Obamas visited the Estela, expensive posh restaurant in Manhattan last month.
The restaurant incident was not the first time that Obama has experienced rejection. In August, the president was turned down by at least three exclusive New York golf clubs while visiting the area to attend an aide’s wedding.
The clubs could not accommodate the president’s security team on one of their busiest days of the year, Local TV channel WNBC reported, nor did they wish to inconvenience their wealthy members who pay more than $100,000 a year in membership fees, clubs officials said to the WNBC.
On Friday, at the Consumers Financial Protection Bureau, Obama signed a new anti-fraud order into law, which should, give Americans better protection from credit card frauds – the fastest growing form of crime in the US.
The order also requires law enforcement agencies to send credit and debit card information that they believe to be compromised to a national “Internet Fraud Alert System.” Also, the order make chip and pin mandatory for all government credit and debit cards, the Huffington Post reported.
The statistics shows that credit card frauds are far less In countries that have biometric chip and pin (Private Identification Number), like in Europe where that practice runs for years.
Chip and pin credit and debit cards will be introduced across the US from October 2015.