Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Boston Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then may have been the recipient of a a official warning from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging 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 records of transactions that occurred at your retail store that the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with get food each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot be used for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued in the state which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and it’s benefits 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 occur if and when a grocery store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted false info on the grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store redeemed more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food 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 experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the 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 and can happen at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will mention violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire Spodek Law Group, 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the violation letter, the USDA might still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will issue a second letter which outlines the agencies decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this verdict. If you choose not to, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our law firm, we file the legal papers to notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is necessary to fix the outcome.

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 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. We 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, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in 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 many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations are even happening. Often, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to consult with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your grocery store, you only have 10 days to respond to the allegations. Failure to respond will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The retailer must 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 typically also looks in order to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store owner that gets a letter speak to 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.