Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Aurora Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then you might have gotten a letter from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have transactions that happened at your retail store that the government claims violates one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you must speak to our our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores privilege to take EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card cannot legally be used for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. The program is run on a national level by the government.

The SNAP government and it’s benefits 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’s a SNAP Violation

SNAP legal violations happen when a retail store is in violation of the rules below.

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

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

The store submitted false information on the store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

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

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Spodek Law Group has immense experience handling SNAP violations letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The violation letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will lay out 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the notice of violation, the USDA may still believe that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will definitely send another letter that specifically states the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, our team the necessary paperwork and notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to override the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process 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 are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, many retail store owners have no issues adhering to them. However, USDA’s 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 buy electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in fines, and penalties. If you conduct a serious violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t know the violations are even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the findings 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 chooses to impose large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing at the store and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

The store owner 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 will also look to check if the owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store 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.