Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Fort Collins Snap Violation Lawyers

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

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should definitely speak to our our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with get food each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The benefits on the card cannot 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 consumer lives. This program is run on a national level by the government.

The program 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 happen when a retail store violates any of the following rules.

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

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

Your store submitted incorrect info on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store took money for more EBT food stamps 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 managing SNAP appeals letters. We can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP violation action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will lay out violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the violation letter, the USDA might still decide that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will 100% issue a second letter that outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to protest this verdict. If you choose not to, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the necessary paperwork to notify the government appeal the decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the legal 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 court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations you have to adhere to for 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, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can include fines and penalties. If you conduct a serious violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make 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 allegations. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate 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. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does 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 and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The retailer 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 in order to check if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that gets a violation 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.