Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Delano Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a letter of warning from the USDA. The notice is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you have violated the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have transactions which happened at your store which the USDA claims is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

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

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The funds on the card are not for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. This program is operated on a nationwide level by the government.

The SNAP 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’s a SNAP Violation

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

The store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

Your store submitted false info on your 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 accepted SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

Sending the violation letter is the first step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can happen at any time. The charging letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire our law firm, our lawyers 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 that happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter that outlines their decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to protest this decision. If you choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify the USDA appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like 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 don’t run into problems. However, USDA’s 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 purchase electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your grocery store, you only have 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. In addition, 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. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does large 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 and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also has to 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 in order to see if the owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any 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.