Hi,
I think it could get more complex than that. Especially if the card companies realise there is a problem and they start seeing multiple claims.
Firstly it would depend what each stage payment is paying for. If the first one is for the CAD - then provided the CAD is produced no one would have the right to claim for it not being 'delivered'. Same for later stages if the purchase is for 'tooling', The deliverable might not be considered to be the loco for the majority of what we are actually paying for, but rather the development and tooling costs. In posting 27 Dave outlines the payments as all being for cad and tooling.
From memory there is also a 180 day limit on claims using the Act - so if you pay for all the tooling and cad in one year, but it then takes 181 days for the actual product to be manufactured, delivered and the fault to arise - or the person holding your money to fail to deliver it , then I suspect you'll be out of luck and have no claim.
Then you have to check who you are actually paying - if it's a 3rd party such as Paypal (possibly kickstarter, I'm not sure how that works) then you lose the rights against the supplier anyway. If the Payment is going direct to the manufacturer (i.e. DJM) then he may be in breach of his credit card merchant terms as most require that the goods are supplied within 30 days of payment. Taking deposits etc is something you have to agree with a card company before you start taking any money - else again they could decide the whole deal is in breach of merchant conditions. Either way the person running the scheme should be under no illusion that a credit card company won't simply pay up and sit back. They'll come chasing for their payouts. We used to own a Guest House - as we took deposits the card company held all our funds for 90 days. That will impact on the DJM cashflow and ability to progress whilst that money is on hold.
So your most likely solution if you have serious problems is Small Claims Court against either the Ltd Company (if DJM is), or Dave himself. Assuming you can off load the liability to a credit card provider in this way is probably not something the card companies are going to be particularly happy to see happen! Especially as Dave has publicly stated he's using it as a form of insurance against failure.
Best to ask your credit card company if you are covered in this type of situation if you are worried.