Why Did Anker Charge Me for "Worry-Free Purchase"? What That Extra Line on Your Anker or Anker SOLIX Order Means
You ordered a power station from Anker SOLIX, and the site promised free shipping. Then your order confirmation shows a line you don't remember choosing: "Worry-Free Purchase." Maybe it was a couple dollars, maybe it was more than $100. If that happened to you, you're not alone, and you may have more options than you think.
We're investigating whether Anker adds a "Worry-Free Purchase" charge to customers' orders without asking them first, and whether the charge buys customers anything they don't already have. This article explains what the charge is, why it may be a problem under California law, and what Anker customers can do about it.
→ Already know you were charged? Tell us about your Anker purchase here.
What is Anker's "Worry-Free Purchase"?
Anker's website lists "Worry-Free Purchase" as if it were a product. It has its own product page on anker.com, priced at $0.98, with the note: "Please don't purchase it as a stand-alone item." And according to that page, it isn't something Anker provides at all. Worry-Free Purchase "is a value-added service offered by Seel," a third-party company that sells shipping protection through online stores' checkouts. Anker's refund policy calls it "Worry-Free Purchase Insurance."
Anker's page says the service lets you "get a full refund if your order doesn't arrive as described," and breaks that down into three things: a $5 payment if a domestic package isn't delivered within 10 days of shipping; up to the full purchase value if items are damaged in transit; and the full purchase value if a domestic package isn't delivered within 30 days of shipping. Claims go through Seel's "Resolution Center," not through Anker.
The same item appears across Anker's family of online stores, including ankersolix.com, and Anker's eufyMake and Nebula sites list it too.
And the price isn't fixed at 98 cents. On anker.com, the Worry-Free Purchase "product" carries dozens of price variants, from $0.98 to over $100, which indicates the fee scales with the size of the order. That matters for Anker SOLIX customers, whose power stations, expansion batteries, and home backup bundles often cost well over $1,000. Seel's program has been described by at least one e-commerce platform that offers it as costing 2–4% of the order subtotal, with a $0.98 minimum. We haven't confirmed the exact formula Anker uses. If you know what you were charged on a large order, that number helps our investigation.
Did you actually choose to buy it?
That's the first question we're investigating. Our investigation so far indicates that Anker's checkout adds Worry-Free Purchase to ankersolix.com orders by default. The customer doesn't click anything to add it. It's already there, and the customer has to notice it and take an affirmative step to remove it before paying. Customers who don't notice pay for it.
The Federal Trade Commission has a name for this design. Its 2022 staff report, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light, lists "Preselection" as a dark pattern—choosing a default that's good for the company, not the customer—and its example is add-on products like trip insurance or an extended warranty that get "automatically tacked on to a purchase unless the customer notices and opts out." The same report lists "Sneak-into-Basket": automatically adding items to the shopping cart without the shopper's permission. And the FTC's guidance on consent is simple: before a company charges you, it should get an affirmative, unambiguous act from you. Doing nothing isn't an affirmative act.
Anker knows how to ask. When it wants to sell you an extended warranty, its refund policy says the warranty "can be purchased separately on the product page" as a clearly priced option. Worry-Free Purchase is different: we believe the choice is made for you.
Do you even need it?
The second question is whether Worry-Free Purchase gives Anker customers anything they don't already have. Consider what Anker itself promises:
Free shipping on every order. Both anker.com and ankersolix.com state "Free Shipping on ALL Orders" in their shipping policies, and Anker's product pages display "Fast, Free Shipping" and "Trusted Delivery" badges. Anker's shipping policy says Amazon handles anker.com logistics and picks the carrier; Anker SOLIX says it ships via UPS or FedEx.
Signature delivery on the expensive items. Anker SOLIX's shipping policy says that for the F2000, F3000, F3800, F3800 Plus, and their expansion batteries, FedEx signature service is provided as a complimentary service. That's the kind of protection against porch theft you might think you were buying with a shipping-protection fee. Anker already includes it.
A 30-day money-back guarantee. Anker's refund policy lets you return undamaged products for a full refund, for any reason, within 30 days of purchase.
Who bears the risk of a lost package? Anker's shipping policy says the customer "shall bear the loss" in one situation: when the customer provided a wrong address. It says nothing suggesting the customer is on the hook when a carrier loses or damages a package. We reviewed Anker's Terms of Use, which govern purchases on its sites, and found no provision shifting that risk to the customer either.
Your credit card. If you paid with a credit card and the goods never arrived, federal law treats the charge as a "billing error" you can dispute with your card issuer, generally by writing to the issuer within 60 days after it sent you the statement showing the charge.
Now consider the fine print on what you're paying for. Seel's own FAQ for Worry-Free Purchase says damage claims cover items that are unusable, clearly fractured, shattered, bent, or crushed, but not cosmetic damage like scratches or dents. Damage claims, and claims for packages marked "delivered" but never received, must be reported within 7 days of the carrier's delivery scan. Everything must be reported within 90 days of the order date. Seel says it assesses claims "programmatically," and when it approves one, the refund arrives as a prepaid card sent by email, not as a credit to the card you paid with. And Anker's refund policy adds that once Worry-Free Purchase coverage is applied, Anker won't process duplicate refunds or reshipments. So the fee doesn't add protection on top of Anker's; it can substitute for it.
If a paid service mostly duplicates protection you already have, most people would decline it if asked. We believe that's why it isn't presented as a question.
Is this legal in California?
It may not be. California's consumer protection laws—the Unfair Competition Law, the False Advertising Law, and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act—prohibit business practices that are unfair or likely to deceive a reasonable consumer. Two theories are at the center of our investigation.
Charging for something the customer never chose. Adding a paid item to an order by default, and treating the customer's failure to remove it as consent, is what federal law calls a "negative option feature." The Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act makes it unlawful to charge a consumer for goods or services sold online through a negative option feature unless the seller clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms before collecting billing information and obtains the consumer's "express informed consent" before charging them. Whether Anker does either is what we're looking at.
Misrepresenting what the customer is buying. The CLRA prohibits representing that a transaction "confers or involves rights, remedies, or obligations that it does not have or involve." If Worry-Free Purchase is presented as the way to be protected when a package is lost or damaged, when the customer already has that protection through Anker's own policies, the carrier, and their credit card, that presentation may be misleading.
Courts have started to take these claims seriously. Over the past year, federal courts have refused to dismiss consumer lawsuits alleging that other online retailers automatically added "shipping protection" or "package protection" fees to orders that customers had to opt out of—including cases in California. Those cases were brought by other law firms, involve other companies, and haven't been decided on the merits. But they show that "the customer could have removed it" isn't the end of the analysis.
Whether Anker's practice violates California law is exactly what we're investigating. We haven't filed a lawsuit against Anker, and nothing has been decided.
How to tell whether you were charged
Check your order confirmation. Open the confirmation email Anker sent you, or log in to your Anker account and look at your order history. Look for a line item labeled "Worry-Free Purchase" with a dollar amount next to it.
Search your inbox for an email from Seel. Seel says it emails customers their coverage details after the order. If you have one, you were charged.
Do the math. On a "free shipping" order, your total should be the product price plus tax. Anything beyond that is worth a look.
What you can do now
Save your records. Keep the order confirmation, any Seel email, and your credit card statement. If you still have access to the cart or checkout screens, screenshots showing how Worry-Free Purchase was presented are especially useful.
Note the amount. Write down what you were charged for Worry-Free Purchase and what you bought. Because the fee appears to scale with the order, the amount on a large Anker SOLIX purchase matters.
Tell us about your purchase. Use the short form on our investigation page. There's no cost and no obligation, and the information you share is kept confidential.
→ Tell us about your Anker purchase by completing this form.
Frequently asked questions
What is "Worry-Free Purchase" on my Anker order? It's a shipping-protection product from a third-party company, Seel, that Anker adds to orders placed on its websites. Anker's product page says it covers delayed, damaged, or lost packages, with claims handled by Seel. Anker's refund policy refers to it as "Worry-Free Purchase Insurance."
How much is the Worry-Free Purchase fee? It varies. The anker.com product page shows a base price of $0.98 but lists price variants to over $100, and the fee appears to scale with the size of your order. Check your order confirmation for the exact amount.
Is Worry-Free Purchase insurance? Anker's refund policy calls it insurance, and Seel describes itself as a licensed insurance provider whose benefits are provided by Seel Insurance Inc. or Arch Specialty Insurance Company. Whether you agreed to buy it, and whether it was presented fairly, are the questions we're investigating.
I didn't notice the charge until now. Does that matter? That's exactly the situation we're most interested in. A fee that people don't notice until they read their receipt is the problem.
I noticed it and removed it before paying. Can I still help? Yes. Screenshots of how the option was presented in your cart or at checkout are valuable to the investigation, even if you weren't charged.
I bought my Anker product on Amazon. Does this apply to me? No. Worry-Free Purchase is added at checkout on Anker's own websites. Amazon purchases aren't part of this investigation.
I don't live in California. Can I still submit my information? Our investigation centers on California consumer protection law, so we're especially interested in hearing from people who made their purchase while in California. But if you bought from Anker while living elsewhere, you can still tell us about your purchase; consumer protection laws in other states may offer their own remedies.
What does it cost to talk to you? Nothing. Completing the form is free, creates no obligation, and is confidential.