AREA MPs have called for a new law to protect honest people from cheats who run bogus bargain sales.

The MPs say people who go to rogue one-off sales are tricked, deceived and even intimidated into paying good money for worthless rubbish.

A one-night sale was abandoned in chaos on Sunday after Pendle MP Gordon Prentice and four councillors intervened to warn would-be punters against buying.

The sale, at the Marsden Community Centre, Nelson, promised tempting offers on electrical goods at knockdown prices.

Dozens of people had turned up for the Sunday night sale after seeing a two inch Casio television advertised at £10.

The MP spoke to the waiting crowd outside the locked doors of the community centre, telling them to be on their guard.

In the Commons, he told fellow MPs that the sale organiser had physically and verbally abused him and was a fraudster and a cheat.

Mr Prentice's interest in one off sales was sparked in October 1995 after masses of complaints which followed a similarly styled sale at a pub .

Organisers abandoned the event on Sunday nine minutes after it had started.

Mr Prentice said: "The audience was seeded with stooges who were there to 'buy' the expensive stuff for next to nothing while genuine buyers would have got rubbish."

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