Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Chandler Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a official notice from the USDA. This notification is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions that happened at your store that the USDA is saying is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

The first thing 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 don’t respond, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

This program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The benefits on the card cannot legally be used 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 the card is issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. This program is run on a national level by the federal 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 occur when a store violates any of the following rules.

The store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

The retail store took SNAP benefits in exchange for nonfood items like alcohol, tobacco, or other goods.

Your store submitted false info on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store redeemed more EBT food stamps than food sales during the same period.

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Spodek Law Group has experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with no warning can come at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will mention violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire Spodek Law Group, we take into their hands all of the communicationswith the USDA and for compiling all the necessary evidence, and drafting a response to the USDA.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the SNAP violation letter, the USDA may still feel that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter which outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the appeal and notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase is like a normal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. However, USDA’s SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant purchase electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t even know SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your store, you have only 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. It must be in writing and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The store owner also be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the 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 store that gets a allegation letter consult with a SNAP violation attorney. Failure can result 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.