Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Des Moines Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a letter from the USDA. The notification is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you have violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have transactions that occurred at your store that the government is saying violates one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should speak to our our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed via an EBT card. The benefits on the card cannot legally be used 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 program and the benefits that come with it 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 when a retail store violates any of the rules below.

The store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting the 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 your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The grocery store redeemed more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

The employees of the store took SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience handling SNAP violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning and can appear at any time. The violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will detail serious allegations, with an attachment of details. You have only 10 days to respond. After 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.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the notice of violation, the USDA may still believe that a violation has occurred. If that happens, they’ll will issue a second letter which outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the alleged violations. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we’ll file the necessary paperwork to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is needed to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District 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. Our lawyers 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 issues adhering to them. However, SNAP 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 get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing 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 were even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to consult with a SNAP violation attorney in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your store, you have only 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will discredit the decision of the USDA and fight any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose chooses to impose huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

The store owner also be able to prove the above mentioned 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 owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended 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.