i've not played GTA online yet but looking to start it soon
kind of worried now.. im not a cheater in anyway but yet it sounds like i can be minding my own business playing the game
some hacker can drop money on me without me doing anything and then i can potentially get banned?
what else can these people do to you?
At the moment there is quite a lot they are able to Money drops, RP hacks, (up your level, remove level and general griefing.
There is a great deal you can do as a solo player (I would use and invite only session and not a solo session) then when you are more comfortable, go into public and check out how the session looks. You can always change session very quickly. If you get money dropped on you, I would not spend over your current balance. R* are supposed to remove it however they are very slow. if you are super worried open a ticket and ask them to remove it. Also regarding money, there is no proof that not banking money has any effect (people forget that both money balanced are logged in statistics)
However saying all that. You may not see a cheater at all for long periods of time and then you can change session as soon as they start griefing. Not everybody using mod menus will be griefers and you may not realise they are there.
Biggest issue for me and while I am giving it a rest is my rank on my main character. Everybody in every session thinks I am cheating so it makes playing the game in open very annoying. When I restart it will be on a low rank as you tnd to be left alone.
Is Online worth it? Yes, I have spent 2.5K hours in online, so it must be good