Rockstar might have gotten their dates mixed up if they're playing Secret Santa with the community now, or this phenomenon might have something to do with the upcoming GTA Online DLC?
In a curious turn of events, several GTA Online players have been reporting various unwarranted and unannounced gifts landing either their in-game bank accounts or their Pegasus delivery profiles.
The first of these reports started rolling in yesterday, when the winners of the Further Adventures in Finance Felony DLC CEO Snapmatic Competition were announced via the Rockstar Newswire. The comment section was full of players thanking Rockstar for depositing money in their accounts, or giving them a free Cargobob (horrible comment etiquette, by the way. So off topic!).
Of course, with the dodgy grammar and apparent dubiosity of random comments made this a questionable case of being news-worthy. However, things have become more concrete thanks to verified Reddit threads elaborating on the matter. Players have been selected seemingly at random for the reception of either a free Cargobob vehicle, GTA $1,225,000, or both.
Already being an owner of the Cargobob doesn't guarantee the money reward, as certain players report having gotten a notification of being awarded the Cargobob despite already owning said vehicle. Some players who received both did them so at the same time, others with a delay of hours or even days.
The only things that is fix and systematic about this is the amount awarded in the cases where players receive money — it's always GTA $1,225,000. A decent sum for odds and ends like vehicles, weapons, ammo and some properties, but hardly enough for the high-end stuff.
The money rewards might be explained by the upcoming release of Cunning Stunts — recently announced to launch on the 12th of July — as some DLCs in the past have also been led up by cash influxes. Finance and Felony was no different, however the sum that time around was lower.
Cunning Stunts is first and foremost an overhaul to the Content Creator, allowing players to make insane stunt tracks with all new props, which you can once again stack. The update is also bringing along a massive amount of new vehicles, specifically designed for racing and stunting. That cash will help you fill your GTA Online garages (hopefully the property cap will be raised again...).
But what's up with the Cargobob? The vehicle is prominently featured in the Finance and Felony update, however as far as we could tell from the trailer, it won't have much to do in the new content coming with Cunning Stunts. It might be just a random act of kindness on Rockstar's part, after all.
Some assumed that the money rewards are just the delayed delivery of the bonus cash that came with Shark Card purchases during a reverse-sale promotion recently. However players who never bought Shark Cards, or only bought one months ago, also received the gift, so that theory has gone out the window.
Other theories were citing possible support tickets having been submitted in the past regarding lost vehicles or disappeared cash. Rockstar support is pretty much overloaded with literal tens of thousands of tickets every day, of which at the very least 80% are fraudulent.
Sorting through all that filth is hard work, so it is understandable if a few tickets fall through the cracks, only to be addressed weeks later. However, once again, recipients of the rewards claim no such tickets were submitted. This once again leads us back to the initial assumption — these are just random care-packages from Rockstar.
The last theory to have been debunked is CEO crates being reimbursed. If you're carrying crates during a buy or sell mission and GTA Online disconnects (or you switch session because of some Hydra-piloting asshole), you'll receive almost all of the money you invested on the crates, minus a small fee taken off the top because "some crates were lost in transit" or something like that.
But, alas, wrong again. Seeing as nothing about this has been posted on any of Rockstar's social media profiles, players are left guessing what all of this could possibly be about. Either way, the random rewards are still going out it seems, so you might still have a chance of landing one or both if you're lucky. Seeing as there is a lack of any kind of organisation to which GTA Online accounts get the gifts, you can't exactly do anything to increase your chances — as far as anyone knows, at least.
The prices for the vehicles contained in Cunning Stunts have not been revealed yet, so there is no telling what that GTA $1,225,000 will buy you once the update drops — but chances are you'll be able to jump right into the new content.
Have you gotten any free gifts in GTA Online?
