Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Buffalo Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a official notice from the USDA. This notice is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have records of transactions which happened at your retail store which the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely speak to our our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the USDA will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with money each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on the card cannot be used for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. This program is operated on a national level by the government.

The SNAP government and the benefits that come with it 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

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

The retail store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect info on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

The store redeemed more coupons than sale of actual food during the same period.

The employees of the store took SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

Our law firm has immense experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal 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. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will lay out violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA may still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, they’ll will issue a second letter that outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to protest this verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the legal papers to notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our attorneys can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there are many laws you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. 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 get electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If you conduct a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your retail store, you only have ten days to respond to the allegations. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose imposes large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store owner that receives a allegation letter speak to 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.