Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Euclid Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have received a letter from the USDA. This notification is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have transactions that happened at your store which the government is saying is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores privilege to take EBT.

About The Program

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

This government and it’s parameters are under handled by the United States 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 grocery store is in violation of the rules below.

The retail store was involved intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

Your grocery 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 at the same time.

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Spodek Law Group has immense experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step which is taken by the USDA USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning and can happen at any time. The charging letter will have allegations in it, but most letters will mention violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once 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 might still feel that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will issue another letter that outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. 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 lawyers, we file the appeal and notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase is like a normal case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our law firm can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, the SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant purchase electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe fines. If you conduct a serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t know SNAP violations are even occurring. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your retail store, you have only ten days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose imposes large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The store owner must be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store owner that gets a letter consult 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.