Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Chino Hills Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a notice from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have records of transactions that happened at your store that the USDA is saying violates one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you must 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 take EBT.

About The Program

This program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card are not for general use, and they cannot be used for cash back transactions. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The program is run on a national level by the government.

This program 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 violations happen when a retail store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect info on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store redeemed more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

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

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Spodek Law Group has immense experience managing SNAP appeals letters. We can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This comes with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The charging letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will outline serious allegations, 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 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 might still feel that a violation has occurred. If that happens, they’ll will 100% issue a second letter which outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this decision. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the necessary paperwork and notify them we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is necessary to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to override the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws have to obey in order to accept 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 limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores don’t know the violations were even happening. In many situations, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your grocery store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, 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 challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The fines 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 has to be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The store owner must be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look in order to see if the owners benefited from the violations, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store that gets a allegation letter consult 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.