Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

San Marcos Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a notice from the USDA. The notice is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you have violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will contain transactions that happened at your grocery store that the government claims is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the USDA will suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the EBT card are not for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the recipient lives. The SNAP program is operated on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and the benefits that come with it are governed 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 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 benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

The store submitted incorrect information on the grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food during the same period.

Your employees have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

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 process in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The charging letter will have allegations in it, but most letters will mention serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once 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 decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter which outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the decision. If you choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we file the appeal to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft 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 override 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 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 are many laws which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. However, the SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limits on how the funds can be used. For example, SNAP recipients cant buy electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your grocery store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond 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 the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers can discredit the decision of the USDA and fight any penalties. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The grocery store must 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 will also look to check if the owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

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