Also, how would you confirm the UPC code was valid prior to the buyer sending their money over? Or even the rebate - most rebates have like a 30 day policy. How could you prevent people from using expired rebates, etc?
I see it more as a logistical and maybe legal problem. Will companies honor rebates not submitted by the original buyer? If not, how easy would it be for them to find out that it's happening, and how big of a fuss might they make over the site? And as the parent brought up, what about fraud? Or not realizing some clause in a given rebate and not sending some vital piece of information with it?
It might all work out, or there might be some catch that renders it totally impractical, but I think it's worth looking into.
It's not that I don't want the rebate, it's that I don't want to hand over the personal information I'm required to give in order to collect it because I know it will be used to spam me.
> how would you confirm the UPC code was valid prior to the buyer sending their money over?
Having thought about this a bit more, I think the right way to do this is not to have an exchange service, but to redeem the rebates directly. Then when you (the company) get the money, the person submitting the rebate gets their cut via paper check sent through the mail. Kind of like those services that will sell things for you on EBay. It would be a labor intensive business, but I still think it could be done profitably if you get the process right.
If a manufacturer's product is not moving, instead of a mail in rebate, they should pay the retailer directly to lower the price. This forces manufacturers to face the music when they make something that no one wants or is overpriced; they will be more careful next time, or the bad ones will go out of business; that is the way the market is supposed to work.
Tolerating these rebates is like allowing bad manufacturers to cover their loses by offering gullible consumers a game of three card monte.
The way to make it honest, is to setup a table outside the door to Fry's or Best Buy, and offer a dollar, a cup of coffee and a donut, or some other small reward to every shopper will agree to sit down right there, fill out the rebate, apply the stamp you will supply, and mail it. With any kind of reasonable rate of return the rebates would vanish.
The reason why your idea will fail, is that it is too hard to transmit all the purposefully burdensome documentation required to retrieve the rebate.