Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Hickory Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then it’s possible have received a letter from the USDA. The notification is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you violated the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have records of transactions which happened at your store which the government claims violates one or more genres 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 stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with get food each month. These benefits are given with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on this card are not for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back services. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. This program is operated on a nationwide level by the government.

The SNAP federal 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 occur when a store is in violation of the following rules.

The store was involved intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

The store redeemed more EBT food stamps 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 team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the letter is the initial step which is taken by the USDA USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The charging letter will contain allegations, but most letters will detail serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. 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 may still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter that specifically states their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the verdict. If you choose not to, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the appeal to notify the USDA appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to override the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do 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’s a lot of rules and regulations which 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 buy electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe fines. If you conduct a serious violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners didn’t know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to consult with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will make 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 fight the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose does large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The retailer also has to be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look to check 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 store owner that receives 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.