'GTA 5 Online' Money Glitch: Rockstar Eliminates Cheaters; What To Do If You Encounter Money Hack

Rockstar Games is taking aim at “Grand Theft Auto Online” cheaters. The developer announced on Thursday that any players who are caught taking advantage of “Grand Theft Auto V’s” online mode by creating and doling out large amounts of in-game cash may be placed in an “isolated cheater pool” with others or eventually banned from the game completely.

“Those who actively engaged in cheating and exploiting the game in this manner will, however, be subject to in-game penalties at our discretion,” the New York City based game developer said on its website. “This may include being placed in isolated cheater pools or banned from GTA Online altogether.”

Rockstar also warned active players to keep an eye out for any type of unwarranted activity. The company gave gamers clear instructions on how to deal with in-game cheaters. “Should you ever encounter someone in ‘GTA Online’ that appears to be taking advantage of exploits in your session, we ask that you alert us directly via the in-game reporting functionality. In the Pause menu, under the Online tab, select Players and scroll to the offending player. From there, select Report and choose Exploits from the violation options.”

Users have been complaining about the money hack since December. Essentially, hackers were giving players large amounts of unwanted in-game cash, making recipients vulnerable to game bans. “To keep the gameplay environment as fair as possible for legitimate players, we routinely do sweeps to separate out cheaters and modders, and to reverse any illegitimate transactions,” the game developer said on its support page on Dec. 24, 2013. “These sweeps are based on in-game automated detection, examination of suspicious gameplay statistics, and also manually-reviewed evidence submitted by the Community. If you were not engaged in any willful cheating or exploiting yourself, you do not need to worry about getting caught up in our work to separate out cheaters from the rest of the population.”

The hack was allegedly performed using consoles that have been modded to access homebrew software. As a result, hackers could simply edit the amount of in-game money accumulated through performing tasks like robberies in the multiplayer mode of “GTA 5.” The same perpetrators are spreading more wealth to the rest of the online community.

“We're grateful for the community's continued support in dealing with these issues and once again apologize to anyone that has had their ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’ experience sullied by these exploits that broke the game's natural flow,” the developer said.

Were you affected by the “GTA V” money hack? Leave a comment below.