Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

DeSoto Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a official notice from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have records of transactions which occurred at your grocery store that the USDA claims violates one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should definitely speak to our our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores privilege to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

This program helps families with money each month. These benefits are given with an EBT card. The funds on this card aren’t for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back services. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the consumer lives. The program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

This 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 counts as a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations occur when a grocery store is in violation of the following rules.

The grocery store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

The store redeemed more coupons than actual food sales during the same period.

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Spodek Law Group has experience managing SNAP violations letters. We can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the letter is the first step which is taken by the USDA USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can appear at any time. The violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will outline serious allegations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire our law firm, we 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, they’ll will issue another letter that outlines the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have 10 days to protest the verdict. If you don’t, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the appeal and notify them we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to change the outcome of the violations.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll 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 attorneys can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, 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 should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe fines. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t know SNAP violations are even occurring. Often, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your retail store, you only have ten days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even though 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 the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers can discredit the findings of the USDA and appeal any decision. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose huge fines to curb 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 the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The store owner must 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 typically also looks in order to see if the owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any grocery store owner that gets 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.