Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Dearborn Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then you might have gotten a letter of warning from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have transactions which occurred at your store which the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you should speak to our our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the government will suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

This program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card cannot be used for general use, and they cannot be used for cash back transactions. The 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 operated on a nationwide level by the federal government.

This government and it’s benefits are under handled by the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What’s a SNAP Violation

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

The retail store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

Your grocery store took money for more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food over the same period.

The employees of the store have taken 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 violations letters. We can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning and can appear at any time. The violation letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will detail violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire our law firm, we 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 believe that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will definitely send a second letter which outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have 10 days to appeal the verdict. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we file the legal papers to notify the government appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather 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.

If the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This next phase is like a normal case, where you’ll be able to do 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 don’t run into problems. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant get electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe fines. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you have only 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The penalties imposed can be huge – 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. The policy has to be in writing and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The retailer must has to be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in existence before the allegations, 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 if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that gets a allegation 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.