Hi mn101,
Welcome. 🙂 I'm glad to hear you are concerned about your protections.
While technically PayPal does not offer Buyer Protection for items purchases with multiple payments, there is always the possibility that a buyer could dispute charges with their credit card company. This risk exists with any payment processor that allows a merchant to accept credit card payments.
If you received a chargeback for any of the Installment payments, PayPal would collect information from you to determine if we have enough evidence to successfully dispute the chargeback(s) with the credit card company. Our protection in that situation is that we have a detected team of chargeback specialists that help increase the probability of winning a chargeback. With a traditional merchant account, a merchant may need to manage the chargeback process on their own or employ their own team of chargeback experts.
If you are concerned about providing a physical good and receiving installment payments, I recommend contacting a legal professional to determine what type of contract or checkout agreement to draft with your customers who opt to send installment payments. If a customer does not complete the agreed installment plan, the issue would need to be resolved between the buyer and seller outside of the PayPal system.
I hope this information helps. 🙂
- Frank
If you see a helpful post, please accept it as a solution or give the author kudos. 🙂 Thanks!
