Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

California Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a notice from the USDA. The notice is most likely 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 notice, and it will have records of transactions which happened at your retail store which the USDA claims is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you must speak to our our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the USDA will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program provides families with money each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on the EBT card cannot 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 which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is run on a nationwide level by the government.

The government and it’s parameters are governed by the US 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 violations happen if and when a grocery store is in violation of the rules below.

The store was involved intrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

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

Your store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food during the same period.

Your employees accepted SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Spodek Law Group has immense experience handling SNAP violations letters. Our law firm 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 EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire Spodek Law Group, 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 this happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter that outlines the agencies decision to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we file the appeal and notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the legal decision, 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 have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our law firm can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, 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 purchase 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 severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners don’t know the violations were even happening. Often, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to consult with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your grocery store, you have only ten days to respond to the violations. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can challenge the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes large fines to curb violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. It must be in writing and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

The grocery store also 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 see if the 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 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.