Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Watsonville Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a letter from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain records of transactions that happened at your retail store which the government claims is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with get food each month. These benefits are given through an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on this card cannot legally be used for general use, and they can’t be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state which the SNAP participant lives. The program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and it’s parameters are governed by the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What’s a SNAP Violation

SNAP legal violations happen when a grocery store is in violation of the rules below.

The grocery store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

The store submitted incorrect information on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food during the same period.

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

The charging letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with no warning can come at any time. The charging letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will lay out 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, 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.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the violation letter, the USDA might still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will 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 the decision. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, we file the necessary paperwork and notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and our team will draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal federal 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 food store retailer, there are many laws which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners have no issues adhering to them. 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 purchase 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 fines. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your retail store, you have only ten days to respond to the violations. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining 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 does huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy must be in writing and the policy must be at the time the violations 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 grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that gets a allegation 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.