Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Danbury Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have received a letter from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, which will have transactions which happened at your retail store that the government claims violates one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should speak to our our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT.

About The Program

This program helps families with money each month. These benefits are distributed via an EBT card. The funds on this card are not for general use, and they can’t be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the recipient lives. This program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and it’s benefits are under handled 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 violations happen when a retail store violates any of the rules below.

The retail store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted false information on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

The employees of the store accepted SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience handling SNAP violations letters. We can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the letter is the first step which is taken by the USDA USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with no warning can come at any time. The SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will mention serious allegations, with an attachment of details. 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 believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter which outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this decision. If you choose not to, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our law firm, we’ll file the legal papers and notify the government appeal the decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This next phase is like a normal 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 you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many retail store owners have no issues adhering to them. 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. If you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe fines. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations are even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your store, you have only 10 days to respond to the allegations. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers can fight the decision of the USDA and fight any penalties. The fines 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 typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing at the store and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The store owner also be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA will also look in order to see if the owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any 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.