The mayor of Sarnia, Ont., is calling on the province to crack down on websites that resell sold-out concert tickets, often at three or four times the original price.

Mayor Mike Bradley compared ticket reselling to organized crime and said there should be a cap on how much ticket brokers can charge.

“I understand ticket pricing and making a profit,” Bradley said. “I don’t understand ticket gouging and making extreme and exorbitant profit.”

Tickets to see popular acts often sell out in minutes before appearing on reseller websites at much higher prices.

Annie Slater, a loyal Adele fan, managed to get tickets in October to one of the singer’s four Toronto concerts.

Slater’s husband, however, planned to surprise her with tickets to the same concert. He ended up using a ticket reseller www.ticketcenter.com, but was charged extra fees and in U.S. funds. Ticket Center has refused to give the Slaters a refund.

“In total, we’re paying over $1,600 for two tickets to Adele’s concert,” Slater said. “It’s ridiculous how much they’re increasing the prices on these tickets and, really, those tickets should be for the fans. If you’re not going to go, don’t buy up the tickets.”

Bradley said he was frustrated when tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s February concert sold out. Just one ticket to the concert on StubHubb.com cost more than $5,000.

The mayor wrote a letter to Ontario’s attorney general expressing his concern, using Springsteen’s song titles.

“I’m on fire…with many others…Blinded by the light…stuck in the Badlands…by ticket brokers looking for…Easy Money,” he wrote.

“I’m making my point with humour, but I’m also making a serious point that you need to do more to protect the consumer in Ontario,” Bradley said.

Toronto Mayor John Tory agreed that the laws surrounding ticket resales should be reviewed to make sure the consumer is protected.

“There laws in place now that stop this kind of scalping…from happening and I think that we should take a look at those laws and see if they’re effective,” he said.

The province made changes to the Ontario Ticket Speculation Act that came into effect July to protect consumers against fraud as online ticket resales become more popular.

But there is no cap on how much the tickets can be sold for as long as the selling uses a verification system and provides a money-back guarantee.

This law does not apply to American companies such as StubHub.

With a Consumer Alert from CTV Toronto’s Pat Foran