GTA Online PC players are seemingly dealing with a widespread and annoying phone message-based issue

While some GTA players are already looking forward to GTA 6, others are still trying to make the most of their remaining time in Los Santos.

After all, if you don’t enjoy trying to predict the next game’s release date, lack any hot takes regarding what it should include, and have given up on planning out your first playthrough, why not just try to appreciate the final stretch of GTA Online?

Though many players have been doing so by filling their new 50-car garage with interesting automobiles, it seems some of those playing on PC have recently had their sessions rudely interrupted by annoying phone calls and messages.

Have you recently received one of these messages in GTA Online?

These issues form the subject of a recent thread on the GTA Online subreddit, which was kicked off by a post from moderator PapaXan, who said: “So it seems another 'ballstortured' hack is going around on PC once again.”

They went on to explain that the apparent issue is seemingly: “sending people messages from Lester that a bounty of -99999999 was not collected on a player called 'ballstortured', but (it) also has been using other names or just stars as well”, and adding: “It does not appear to affect the player’s money or stats.”

A number of users commenting in the thread suggested that they experienced this issue themselves during recent playing sessions, with BigBob145 saying: “I was doing (the) Cayo (Perico heist) and got the call right as I was shooting the juggernaut. I was fuming.” and others alleging that they’d even received messages while playing solo in invite-only sessions.

Meanwhile, user That1dude64666 speculated that the issue could be linked to a different in-game PC issue from February 2022, which seemingly saw one player force others to spectate his gameplay.

click to enlarge

Regardless, the majority of players look to be following PapaXan’s advice and reporting the problem to Rockstar Support, which, as of writing, hasn’t issued a statement on the apparent issues described in the thread.

If the service does acknowledge the alleged problems via Twitter or a patch designed to rectify them is released, this article will be updated as soon as possible.

Regardless of whether you’re planning on waiting on a fix before diving into the Los Santos Drug Wars update’s Last Dose missions, make sure to follow us for more updates on GTA 6 and GTA Online as new vehicles and more arrive.