Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Conway Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then it’s possible have received a letter of warning from the USDA. The notification is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have records of transactions that occurred at your store that the government is saying violates one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the government will suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with money each month. These benefits are given with an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card cannot be used for general usage, and they can’t be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. The SNAP program is operated on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The federal 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations occur if and when a retail store is in violation of the following rules.

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

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

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

Your store redeemed more EBT food stamps than actual food sales over the same period.

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

The charging letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will detail serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire our law firm, we handle 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 may still decide that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will definitely send a second letter which specifically states the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have 10 days to protest this decision. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the legal papers to notify the government 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, evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

In the event the USDA refuses to overturn the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process 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 have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. 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 you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know SNAP violations are even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation lawyer to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your retail store, you only have ten days to respond to the violations. Your failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even if 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 lawyers can challenge the findings of the USDA and appeal any decision. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does huge 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 and in effect when the allegations 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 typically also looks to see if the grocery 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 violation 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.