Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Charlottesville Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a letter of warning from the USDA. The notice is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain transactions that happened at your store that the government is saying violates one or more categories 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 suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are given with an EBT card. The benefits on this card cannot be used for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT 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 nationwide level by the government.

This government and the benefits that come with it 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 legal violations happen when a grocery store violates any of the rules below.

The grocery store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted false information on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The store redeemed more coupons than sale of actual food during the same period.

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

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Our law firm has immense experience managing SNAP violations letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire our law firm, 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will issue another letter which outlines the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the decision. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our firm, our team the appeal and notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, the SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limits on how the funds can be used. 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 serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t know SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your grocery store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you don’t 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 lawyers can challenge the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes large fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing and in effect at the time the violations were filed.

The store owner 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 typically also looks in order to check if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store owner that gets a allegation letter consult 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.