Hello!
I recently ran into a situation where I attempted to give a surprise gift to a friend of mine in Guild Wars 2! Unfortunately, the gemstore did not tell me at all that my friend had already owned the item. This was only revealed to me once I already spent the 500 gems on the item and they had informed me they already own the skin, and that those items are now essentially overpriced, low-functioning transmutation charges. They could not refuse or return the item.
To get my gems back and refunded, I had to go out of my way to create a support ticket.
Most games/platforms I know that support a gifting function typically have ways to allow the gift receiver to return the item to the sender (To help avoid cases like emotional/monetary blackmail, harassment, stalking, or just generally not accepting gifts either out of kindness or because they already have one.) but Guildwars currently has no function to not only allow the receiver to return the item, but to also warn the buyer that the individual already owns the item before they buy it.
I'd love to give more gifts in GuildWars 2 but this makes it more difficult than it really should be when it turns out that I gave my friend a gift they already own. I know the support ticket feature exists for a reason but I'd love to see Arenanet implement protections for buyers and receivers in this regard!