Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Daytona Beach Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then it’s possible have been the recipient of a a letter from the USDA. The notice is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will contain transactions that occurred at your retail store that the USDA claims is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should contact our legal team. 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 accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program provides families with get food each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot be used for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is operated on a nationwide level by the government.

The 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 violations occur if and when a store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

Your store submitted false info on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The grocery store took money for more coupons than actual food sales over 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 violation letters. We 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 SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA may still believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will definitely send another letter which outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the alleged violations. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify them appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase is like a normal federal 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’s a lot of rules and regulations have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, many retail 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 limits on how the funds can be used. For example, SNAP recipients cant purchase 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 SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t know SNAP violations are even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will discredit the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – 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 look to see if you have a store compliance policy. It has to be in writing and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The retailer must be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look in order to see if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store owner that receives 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.