Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Titusville Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have been the recipient of a a letter from the USDA. The notice is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, which will have transactions which happened at your grocery store that the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

This program provides families with funds to buy food each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot legally be used 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 are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. The program is run on a national level by the government.

This program 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 violations happen if and when a grocery store is in violation of the following rules.

The store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect information on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store redeemed more coupons than food sales during the same period.

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

Sending the violation letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will detail serious allegations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire our law firm, 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 may still believe that a violation has occurred. If that happens, the USDA will issue another letter which outlines the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have 10 days to protest this verdict. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our law firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal 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 are many laws you have to adhere to for 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 limits on how the funds can be used. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing 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 don’t even know SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring 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 penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing at the store and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The retailer must be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that gets a violation 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.