Even Obama’s Credit Card Has Been Declined

Published

May 1, 2018

Michael Schreiber is Credit.com's former Editor-In-Chief. He's worked in print and online news as well as documentaries for The New York Times, Frontline, ABC News, TheStreet.com and others. He attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he was also an adjunct professor.

Following a speech Friday at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in which President Obama discussed an executive order that would require security upgrades to government-issued debit and credit cards, the commander in chief shared one of his own experiences with credit cards… and not a positive one. He discussed an awkward moment at a restaurant with the first lady. He presented his credit card for payment, and 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.”

During the speech the president also announced a number of measures designed to make consumer credit card payments more secure as well as consumer protections in the event that credit card fraud or other forms of identity theft have occurred. He rattled off a list retailers that would be incorporating chip and pin technology into their retail stores and announced that CITI would join other financial institutions in providing consumers with free credit scores. [Read more about this executive order here.]

Consumers can already get copies of their credit reports for free once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com. In addition, there are number of sites, including Credit.com, where consumers can get their credit scores for free (we each have dozens of them, after all) and a breakdown of why they are what they are.