Out of the blue, Gerald Keyser was informed earlier this month that he was a millionaire, the lucky winner of a contest.

Keyser was skeptical, however, as the man who called his home to inform him of his newfound wealth described what he would have to do to secure his winnings: give out his personal information to a courier who would deliver the check to Keyser’s Alvaton residence and pay the state taxes on the prize to the company, Cash Rewards, which Keyser said may have been based in Jamaica.

“I said, ‘You must have the wrong guy’ because I’ve never entered a contest with them,” said Keyser, a retired former California sheriff’s deputy. “I told them I’m not deserving of something like that, so why don’t you give it to a good charity.”

Keyser received multiple phone calls in the past two weeks informing him that he won a substantial cash reward – $2.5 million on one call, $5 million on another, $250,000 on another, just hours after Keyser called the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office to report the previous calls.

On each call, the caller ID showed an 876 number originating from “Kingston CB,” Keyser said, and the man on the other end spoke in a thick accent suggesting he was from Jamaica.

“My wife’s niece in California got scammed by an outfit sounding a lot like this – she gave them over $50,000 and lost her home,” Keyser said.

Shelley Johnson, deputy communications director for the state attorney general’s office, said the office received a rash of complaints this time last year from consumers who believed they were being scammed through phone solicitations.

“While we have not seen an uptick or resurgence of these types of phone solicitations, you have to keep in mind as a consumer that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Johnson said.

Phone scams that appear to originate overseas are difficult to investigate because of the challenge involved in determining the origin of the calls, Johnson said, so when many of these calls are reported, the attorney general’s office focuses on alerting the public and providing advice.

Johnson said the office has received multiple complaints from people who report that they were contacted over the phone by someone claiming to be a representative for Medicare or Social Security, requesting personal information so that new Medicare cards can be issued.

“Medicare will not contact people in this manner,” Johnson said.

Keyser said the calls stopped coming last week after his wife was contacted at their home by the same number and she told them to stop calling.

“It’s just an ongoing thing; every few thousand people (they contact), they find somebody that falls for it,” Keyser said.

According to the attorney general’s office, signs that a financial scam may be behind a telephone call include:

• high-pressure sales tactics

• insistence on an immediate decision

• a request for credit card or bank account numbers

• an offer to send someone to your home to pick up money, or some other method, such as overnight mail, to get your funds more quickly.

• an investment that is “without risk”

• a statement that something is free, followed by a requirement that you pay for something

• unwillingness to provide written information or references that you can contact

• unresponsiveness to questions or objections.

People who receive calls should get as much information about the company as possible and ask if the company the caller represents is registered with the attorney general’s office. Credit card numbers or other personal information should never be given over the phone.

Report complaints by calling the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Hotline at (888) 432-9257.