DFAS Debt Letter – looking for guidance

Hey there, I am a retired USAF dude; retired 1 Jan 23 out of Ft Meade. I am looking for help/guidance please.

2 years to the week I signed out of my base I received a letter in the mail stating I owe $11.5K. The letter states that I was paid for leave I sold (60 days) when I only had 14 days to sell. My final pay was large. ~$14K. I called the base finance office about a week after I saw this to see if there was a mistake because I was only expecting ~$5K. I don't remember the entire conversation from 1.5 years ago but is was something like, "your final pay looks good; it went through the audit process".

Of course I don't have any of my docs from that time. My AF email was terminated a long time ago. But what I intended to do was something like 90 days of Skillbridge, 40 days of terminal leave and 14 days of PTDY. I was fully approved by the CC, Education office, base finance, etc.

I never had 60 days to sell.

So I called the DFAS number on the letter to figure out what is going on. The deffered me to the AF unit that I outprocessed with to get an understandin of the problem. Also, they advised me to start paying the debt as I work through thus issue.

I tried to contact them (Fort Meade) to get a better understanding of the issue but I can't talk to anyone. They replied back to my email to contact DFAS. (not super helpful thus far).

Of course I spent that $ on bills and other nonsense a long time ago. Also, I am getting a divorce, and have little funds to spare at the moment.

1. Should I start paying the debt when I don't know what the hell is going on? I am thinking if I start paying, it implies that I acknowledge I was overpaid.
2. If I don't get an answer from Meade, is there another entity in the AF I can discuss this with? AFPC maybe?

Thanks! hopefully someone out there can help me out.