Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Greenacres Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then you might have received a letter of warning from the USDA. The notification is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, which will have transactions which happened at your store that the government claims violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you must contact our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to take EBT.

About The Program

This program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The benefits on this card are not for general use, and they can’t be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. This program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The SNAP federal and it’s parameters are governed 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 if and when a grocery store is in violation of the rules below.

The retail store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect info on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food over the same period.

The employees of the store have taken 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. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will lay out violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire our law firm, our lawyers handle 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 decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter that specifically states their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the decision. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the legal papers to notify them we are going to appeal their 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 necessary to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal 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 lawyers can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many grocery 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 limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can include fines and penalties. If you conduct a major violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your retail store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the violations 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 won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will 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 imposes large fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing at the store and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The store owner also be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks to see if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any owner that receives a violation letter speak to 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.