From the patch note:
IN-GAME STORE GIFTING CHANGES
The in-game store gifting feature is being restored this week, with some changes being made with this update. Gifting >items to another player will now have a few restrictions for new accounts:The account must have a verified e-mail address associated with the account
The account must have at least one hero at level 20
The account must be at least 1 week old and have logged into the game at least 5 times
Overall, these restrictions should not impact existing players, but will help prevent gifting abuse from those that were >attempting to hide fraudulent transactions behind newly created accounts.
Based on what I am seeing here, I am confused how this would impact what has happened in the recent event. Lets break down the 3 changes 1 by 1:
The account must have a verified e-mail address associated with the account
Okay, unless I am missing something, this takes all of 1 minute to do - creating email takes a minute or two at most through gmail.
The account must have at least one hero at level 20
1-20 should not take any more than 1 hour even without any server boost, unless I am making a mistake over here.
The account must be at least 1 week old and have logged into the game at least 5 times
I can easily see those "gold sellers" make staggered account, logging in once a day. Boom, they are simply delayed by 1 week.
I can simply make an account today, verify my email, spend 30 min to 1-20. Make 10~20 per day of these accounts and log in at least once a day. Takes less than a minute for these accounts. Now I have 10~20 throwaway accounts with just a little time I spent leveling (which honestly takes the longest time).
So as of now, unless I am missing some info, the new "fix" appears to be simply a minor nuisance to the "gold sellers". How is this still going to fix the said abuse? Because as of now, all it takes is spend $5 to still ban someone. I believe it was @BWCorvus who stated gifting should be rejectable - mostly not a problem (for example, if I get a gift notification from an account I have heard/seen before, there is a little reason to reject), but to a random account you have never heard of it before, this should be possible to prevent an abuse.
I am just not convinced this would fix the abuse that was going on.