Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Coeur d’Alene Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then you might have been the recipient of a a official warning from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will contain transactions which 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 must contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

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

This government and the benefits that come with it 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 happen when a retail store is in violation of the following rules.

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

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

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

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

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 immense experience managing SNAP violations letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. This comes with no warning and can happen at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will outline serious allegations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. 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 notice of violation, the USDA might still believe that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter which outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the allegations set forth. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our firm, we’ll file the necessary paperwork and notify them appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District 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’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, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant purchase electronic goods. As a retailer, if 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 violation, then you may 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 are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your store, you have only ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, 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 will discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does large fines to curb violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy must be in writing and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The retailer must be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the 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 grocery store owner that gets a allegation letter speak to with a SNAP violation attorney. Choosing not to respond 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.