As Americans continue to battle high inflation, the Biden administration has attempted to get us all to chill out by engaging in something of a war on “junk fees” and businesses engaging in non-transparent pricing. Before the Fourth of July, Biden had a big event at the White House to focus on stopping hidden fees affecting tickets to events like concerts, football games, and more. A bunch of companies showed up, including top ticket reseller SeatGeek. Now, SeatGeek appears to be ignoring what they pledged to do at that White House event in classic “Joe Biden is powerless so YOLO” fashion.

SEATGEEK MADE NATIONAL news on Thursday when alongside Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the ticket reseller had announced with President Joe Biden at the White House that it would adopt an all-in pricing strategy to be more transparent with fans and stop hiding fees until the end of a purchase. Critics, however, are skeptical, noting that the company already isn’t using all-in prices even when legally required. 

Last year, New York passed a significant piece of legislation around the ticketing business, requiring companies to show all their fees upfront and to disclose the original face value of a ticket when it’s being resold. As Rolling Stone has previously reported, nearly all of the biggest ticket resale companies have skirted those laws in ways that at minimum go against what the spirit of the law intended and at worst outright breaks it. 

In SeatGeek’s case, its “all-in” prices in New York aren’t actually showing the full ticket price plus fees immediately. When shopping for a ticket, users on the site will initially see fee-less listings for tickets all over the venue map. It’s not until they actually click on their desired seats that a ticket buyer sees what they’re really going to pay. For instance, as of publication, the cheapest tickets for Drake and 21 Savage’s upcoming concert at Madison Square Garden shows seats in the upper deck for $241 each. It’s only after clicking that customers see the actual price of $328 each, $87 more than initially advertised. The cheapest tickets for Thomas Rhett’s upcoming concert at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo are initially listed at $24 each, but they rise to $40 after they’re selected.

Of note: SeatGeek is not being transparent about fees with regard to tickets sold in states like Texas, not just New York. Take a look at these screenshots from SeatGeek. The first one is for the Beyonce concert on September 21 in Arlington, Texas (an extra $40 in fees applies on top of the $200 per ticket cost you see when you first click on the site). The second two relate to Metallica’s concert on August 20 in Arlington, where the fees not disclosed upfront are an extra $394.

There are a lot of folks who are wanting to tackle these ticket sellers and their runaway prices. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana is one, though he’s been focusing on TicketMaster (for the most part).

Perhaps then it should come as no surprise that Sen. Ted Cruz is pushing federal legislation that would force transparency in ticket fees in a way that the White House event did not.

Per Cruz, the bill would “require all event ticket sellers to display the total ticket price—including all required fees—in any advertisement or marketing materials. Just like how consumers see the full price of an airline ticket online, the new ‘TICKET Act’ will make buying tickets for large sporting events and concerts more transparent.  The bill would also disclose to consumers if a ticket being offered for sale is a so-called ‘speculative ticket,’ meaning it is not within the seller’s possession.”

Perhaps progressives who want to address “junk fees” would do better to pass Cruz’s legislation than rely on White House events and Joe Biden to effectively address this issue—if they’re serious about solving the problem as opposed to just campaigning on it.