Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

St. Cloud Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then it’s possible have been the recipient of a a letter of warning from the USDA. This notification is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you have violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions which happened at your store that the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely speak to our our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed via an EBT card. The benefits on this card aren’t for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and it’s parameters are governed 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 occur when a grocery store violates any of the rules below.

The retail store was involved intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect information on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience managing SNAP appeals letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. 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, and have attached documents detailing 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 violation letter, the USDA might still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will issue another letter which outlines the agencies decision 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 unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify the government appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This process is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our law firm can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners have no issues 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, people getting SNAP benefits cant get electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If you conduct a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners don’t even know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your grocery store, you only have ten days to respond to the allegations. 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. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy has to be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The retailer must be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any grocery store owner 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.