Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Ankeny Snap Violation Lawyers

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

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

This program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are given through an EBT card. The benefits on this card aren’t 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 where the recipient lives. The program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

This government and it’s parameters 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 counts as a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations occur if and when a retail store violates any of the rules below.

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

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

The store submitted false info on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The store took money for more coupons than food sales during the same period.

Your employees accepted SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Spodek Law Group has immense experience handling SNAP violations letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

The charging letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This comes with no warning can come at any time. The SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will outline serious allegations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire Spodek Law Group, 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 decide that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter that outlines the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this verdict. If you don’t, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, our team the legal papers and notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief which contains all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to override the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery 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, SNAP 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 buy electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners don’t know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT 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 presented to your store, you have only 10 days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The grocery store must has to be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA will also look to see 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 store owner that gets a 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.