Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Union City Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts 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 stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will contain records of transactions which occurred at your grocery store which the USDA claims violates one or more genres of violations.

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

About The Program

This program provides families with money each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card cannot legally be used for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent 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 SNAP program is run on a national level by the federal government.

This program and it’s parameters 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

Snap violations happen if and when a store violates any of the rules below.

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

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

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

Your grocery store took money for more EBT food stamps than actual food sales during the same period.

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This comes with no warning and can appear at any time. The violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will mention violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire Spodek Law Group, our lawyers 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 notice of violation, the USDA may still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will issue another letter that outlines the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the legal papers to notify the USDA appeal the decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to change the outcome of the violations.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This next phase is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our attorneys 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 normal situations, many retail store owners have no issues adhering to them. However, the SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant buy electronic goods. If, and when, 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 might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t know SNAP violations were even happening. Often, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to consult with a SNAP violation attorney in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does large fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing and in effect at the time the violations were filed.

The retailer also be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, 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 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.