Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

South Gate Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then may have received a letter of warning from the USDA. This notification is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you violated the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have records of transactions that occurred at your store that the USDA is saying is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, 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 terminate/suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

This program helps families with funds to buy food each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed to consumers via an EBT card. The benefits on the card cannot be used for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the consumer lives. This program is operated on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The federal 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’s a SNAP Violation

SNAP legal violations occur if and when a store is in violation of the rules below.

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

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

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

Your grocery store redeemed more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food at the same time.

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Spodek Law Group has immense experience managing SNAP violations letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will lay out violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire our law firm, 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.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the violation letter, the USDA may still decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will issue another letter which outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, our team the appeal and notify the government appeal the decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal federal 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 grocery store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, USDA’s SNAP program 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 buy electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you have only ten days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose chooses to impose large fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing at the store and in effect when the violations were filed.

The retailer must be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that gets a violation letter consult 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.