Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Lenexa Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a letter of warning from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have transactions which occurred at your retail 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 contact our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on the EBT card cannot legally be used for general use, and they can’t be used for cash back services. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the government.

The 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 if and when a grocery store violates any of the following rules.

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

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

The store submitted false information on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

The grocery store took money for more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

Sending the letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The violation letter will contain allegations, but most letters will outline violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the violation letter, the USDA may still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter which outlines their decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have 10 days to appeal the decision. If you choose not to, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our law firm, we file the necessary paperwork and notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, 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 attorneys can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant purchase electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t even know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your store, you have only 10 days to respond to the allegations. Your failure to respond to the allegations 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. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers can challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It must be in writing and in effect at the time the violations were filed.

The retailer must has to be able to prove the above mentioned 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 if the owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any grocery store owner 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.