Hackers are draining GTA Online players' wallets with an insurance fraud hack.
The GTA Online hacker issue is peaking with the recent appearance of the particularly vile and damaging insurance fraud hack. Hackers were present in many GTA Online public lobbies beforehand, granted, however avoiding them has never been as crucial as now. Before, they could cause mild inconvenience, or an unfair temporary ban at worst.
The new hack, on the other hand, allows the cheaters to drain your in-game cash, which due to the Shark Card system may partially have been bought with actual currency. These hackers, as it should be obvious, must be avoided at all costs. And before you ask which platforms they are active on, it's the PC version of GTA 5 you only need worry about — the consoles versions are not affected.
The first and most useful method of avoiding these leeches is also one of the simplest — leave the lobby. Join another session. You might land in a session with a hacker of its own, but you might not.
Staying in a lobby with a hacker has absolutely no merits. They most likely won't be dropping any cash on you and even if they do, it will only get you banned until you run the necessary laps with Rockstar Support.
While you're at it, you might as well group up with a crew or regular group of friends and only join invite-only lobbies. You're a lot less likely to encounter any hacker there, plus playing with a group of people you get used to will enhance the experience.
What's more than likely is that they're there to screw with everyone. These hackers get their fun from trolling legitimate GTA Online players by teleporting them all over the map, dropping various props or vehicles on them or saddling them with respawning hostile clones.
However if you want to stay in the lobby for whatever reason — maybe you don't want to run, maybe you stay out of defiance or honor — there are still ways to outsmart the hackers.
Whatever you do, avoid cars if you can. Ever basic hacker menu can override your vehicle's controls, launch it up into the sky, freeze it mid-air and boot you out the door. The hacker will likely have a good laugh as you go splat on the ground beneath repeatedly.
Or, you know, they could strip your ride of all mods and upgrades, devolve it into the stock edition and remove collision detection. This will leave you falling through the map into "blue hell" for all eternity — or at least until you go back to our first suggestion.
Another step you should immediately take if you're sticking to a hacked lobby is go into passive mode. Hackers can take you out without being near you, without having to aim at you. Of course, hackers still have some ways of offing you while you're in passive, but their options become limited.
Of the many abominable things hackers can do, simply nailing you with auto-aim is the lest troubling. They can blow up every player in the lobby at the same time remotely, again and again. They can spawn an infinite number of flaming cargo planes until either your PC or internet connection can't take it anymore, crashing your game. They can cause your character to spontaneously ragdoll and stay in a ragdolled state.
The safest place you can be while in a hacked lobby is one of your apartments. Here none of the previously listed hacks affect you. While you're in your apartment, you are in a safe haven.
The last tip we have for you is not to provoke them. Do not insult them, do not complain, do not threaten. If they get a reaction from you, they've won. It's why they do it. GTA Online hackers are nothing more than internet troll given slightly more power than that on a message board. Ignore them, and bothering you will no longer be entertaining.
What kinds of troll-deterrent tips do you have for your fellow GTA Online players?
