In some cases, Chrisco was charging customers as much as $800 for cancelling their Christmas hamper orders, the Commerce Commission found.

A rival Christmas hamper company has been quick to act after the liquidation of Mrs Christmas this morning, offering customers the chance to switch companies and keep their savings balance intact.

Chrisco has announced that any Mrs Christmas customer wishing to switch to Chrisco will receive a credit for the amount they have already saved towards this year’s hamper.

In return, customers have to pick a hamper of similar value in the Chrisco catalogue, and keep up their payments.

The savings of about 5000 customers of hamper company Mrs Christmas are in limbo after the business went into liquidation this morning.

In a shock move, Mrs Christmas withdrew its opposition to an application for liquidation filed by courier company Post Haste.

This cleared the way for Associate Judge David Robinson to place the company in the hands of liquidators Damien Grant and Steven Khov of Waterstone Insolvency.

“The evidence establishes that the defendant is indeed insolvent,” he said this morning.