Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Encinitas Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have been the recipient of a a official warning from the USDA. This letter is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have transactions which occurred at your grocery store that the government is saying violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our 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 grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

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

This federal and it’s benefits 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 counts as a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations occur if and when a retail store is in violation of the following rules.

The grocery store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

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

The employees of the store have taken 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 violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will outline serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire Spodek Law Group, we take into their hands all of the communicationswith the USDA and for compiling all the necessary evidence, and drafting a response to the USDA.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the SNAP violation letter, the USDA may still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will issue another letter that outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we file the necessary paperwork to notify the USDA appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and our team will generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

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

SNAP Violations

As a food 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, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners didn’t know SNAP violations are even occurring. In many situations, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and fight 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 curb violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy must be in writing and the policy must be when the allegations were filed.

The store owner 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 retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store that receives 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.