In an update on the Rockstar News Wire, the studio wrote, “We have received reports from some players who experienced losing characters, progress, items, and/or in-game cash during the first few days after release. We are working diligently to identify and correct the causes for these losses, as well as to establish how best to restore any lost progress and value.”
The post suggests that quitting out of GTA Online to the single-player component will save your progress once more and decreases the chance of lost data. It also advises players to refrain from hitting the ‘retry’ button whenever the service fails to connect.
Rockstar added, “We experienced some instability on PlayStation 3 around 11:00 AM ET and service was restored at 12:30 PM ET. Another issue was seen on both platforms just before 4:00 PM ET and was resolved shortly after. We have not forgotten about players who reported (and who continue to report) issues with lost characters, items, apartments, cars, or in-game money. If you have lost any progress, please subscribe here for automatic email updates whenever there is news.”