Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Riverside Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have received a letter from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you violated the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have records of transactions which occurred at your grocery store that the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

This program helps families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are given through an EBT card. The funds on the EBT card are not for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued in the state where the recipient lives. The program is run on a nationwide level by the government.

This federal and it’s parameters are under handled by the US Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What counts as a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations happen if and when a retail store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

Your grocery store took SNAP funds in exchange for nonfood items like alcohol, tobacco, or other goods.

The store submitted false info on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The grocery store took money for more coupons than food sales over the same period.

The employees of the store accepted SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Our law firm has experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter will contain allegations, but most of them will outline serious allegations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire our law firm, our lawyers handle all of the communicationswith the USDA and for compiling all the necessary evidence, and drafting a response to the USDA.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the violation letter, the USDA may still believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will definitely send a second letter that outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our firm, our team the legal papers to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limits on how the funds can be used. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant purchase electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations are even occurring. Often, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your grocery store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any penalties. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing at the store and the policy must be when the allegations were filed.

The grocery store must be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look in order to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that gets a violation letter speak to with a SNAP violation attorney. Choosing not to respond in negative consequences. The USDA is required by Congress to issue a disqualification for a period of up to 5 years. This can result in huge losses which are hard to recover from.