As someone said before, there is no money loss for ArenaNet, if they just refund the Gems to the customer.
New customers have the chance to buy the slots and the salvaging items + Airship pass only once and have them account wide.
Here are a ton of customers who buyed it multiple times in the past because there wasn’t even an announcement that something like this can happen. Now i sit on multiple Items split to different characters and feel very sad about it.
Dear ArenaNet Staff, please give the customers a refund for the items. You won’t lose any money on this and you satisfy your customers.