Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Dublin Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have been the recipient of a a official warning from the USDA. The notice is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, which will have transactions that occurred at your grocery store that the USDA is saying violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

This program provides 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 usage, and they cannot be used for cash back transactions. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued in the state where the consumer lives. The program is operated on a nationwide level by the government.

The SNAP program and it’s parameters are governed by the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What does it mean to have a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations happen if and when a store violates any of the rules below.

The grocery store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

Your store redeemed more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

Your employees accepted SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

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

Sending the letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The violation letter will contain allegations, but most letters will mention 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, 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 violation letter, the USDA might still feel that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will issue another letter which specifically states 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 choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify them we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal 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. 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 have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, USDA’s SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant get electronic goods. If, and when, 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 violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, store owners didn’t even know SNAP violations are even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to consult with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you have only ten days to respond to the allegations. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond 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 a fighting change. Our lawyers will discredit the findings 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 on purpose chooses to impose huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also 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 see if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any grocery store owner that gets a 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.