Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Alexandria 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. This letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain records of transactions that occurred at your store which the USDA is saying is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our legal team. 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 Program

The SNAP program provides families with funds to buy food each month. These benefits are given with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card aren’t for general use, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the government.

This program and it’s benefits 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’s a SNAP Violation

Snap violations happen if and when a grocery store is in violation of the rules below.

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

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

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

Your store took money for more EBT food stamps than food sales at the same time.

The employees of the store took SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

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

Sending the violation letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The SNAP violation letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will lay out violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire our law firm, our lawyers 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 notice of violation, the USDA might still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter which outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we file the necessary paperwork to notify them appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase is like a normal court 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 are many laws you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners have no issues adhering to them. 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 should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t know SNAP violations were even occurring. In many situations, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT 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 SNAP violation letter is sent to your grocery store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – 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 at the store and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

The retailer also has to be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks in order to see if the 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 store owner that gets a 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.