Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Gainesville Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then you might have been the recipient of a a official warning from the USDA. This notice is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have records of transactions which happened at your retail store which the USDA is saying violates one or more categories of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with get food each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on the card cannot legally be used for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued in the state where the consumer lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP federal and it’s benefits 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

Snap violations happen when a store is in violation of the rules below.

The retail store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the 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 incorrect information on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store redeemed more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food over the same period.

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

Sending the letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This comes with no warning can come at any time. The violation letter will contain allegations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, with an attachment of details. You have only 10 days to respond. Once you hire our law firm, we handle 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 may still believe that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, they’ll will 100% issue a second letter which outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the appeal to notify the USDA appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court 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 grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP 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 fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t even know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers will discredit the decision of the USDA and fight any penalties. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose chooses to impose huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy has to be in writing and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The store owner also has to 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 will also look to see if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that receives a allegation 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.