Question about VA Bennies and collections [View all]

I am a 60 year old Viet Nam Era vet with a recently granted 70% disability pension. After 6 months of use I get a letter from the VA saying that they were docking me near $2000 because they overpaid me for schooling back in the early 1980s. There was a number to call so I called it. The agent who answered after a mere hour's wait informed me that I did indeed owe that money and could adjust payment so that only $180 a month would be removed from my pension of $1300. He gave me the number for the VA education benefits department so I could get the facts and figures for why I owed this debt.

I tried hard to recall how I could have earned such a debt back then. I went to school full time on the GI Bill plus I took up a bunch of odd jobs because the GI bill didn't pay out much monthly. Although my grades were high I did stumble and get a D in a statistics class which I ended up repeating twice more before getting a B.

So I called the number to the VA education benefits department and they looked me up on their records. Nope, they could find utterly no reason on their end, must be some sort of mistake they told me. The next day I re-called the number to the VA department that had sent me the letter saying they were docking my pension. Another hours wait got me a different agent. I informed her that the very education benefits department I had been sent to knew utterly nothing about this and according to their records I owed them nothing....and if she would be so kind could fix the problem for me.

Much to my surprise she said NO!!! and went on to inform me that the very department that I supposedly owed this money to was in error. The fact that they had no records proving I owed anything did not matter and they were docking my pension $180 a month (it started happening June) and that I have NO ability to contest this. When I asked how she knew I owed this money she could not tell me but she was certain I owed it and equally certain it would be collected!

So here are my two questions:
Assuming I actually owe that money, (and I truly don't think this is the case), isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on such a debt? She claimed that there WAS a statute of limitations on my contesting the debt btw. (Honestly, the first I even heard of this debt was that damned letter I just got from them last May!)

What recourse do I really have? IMO the collection agency for the VA sounded like a private agency who were unwilling to help me in any way shape or fashion and could care less if the debt were legitimate, they wanted that money PERIOD and were gonna take it.


Thanks ahead of time for any who read this.