Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Sandy Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a letter of warning from the USDA. The letter is probably 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 transactions that happened at your retail store which the USDA claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should speak to our our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the government will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

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

The SNAP government 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’s a SNAP Violation

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

The retail store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the 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 information on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store took money for 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.

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 process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The charging letter will contain allegations, but most of them will mention serious allegations, with an attachment of details. 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 violation letter, the USDA might still believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will 100% issue another letter that outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the alleged violations. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, we’ll file the legal papers and notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers 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 cases, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can include fines and penalties. If you conduct a major violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate 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 a fighting change. Our lawyers can challenge the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose huge 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 and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The retailer must has to be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look to check if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any grocery store owner that gets a violation 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.