Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Hawaii Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then you might have received a official warning from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions which happened at your retail store that the government claims is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The benefits on this card are not for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back services. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. This program is operated on a nationwide level by the government.

The SNAP federal 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 occur when a store is in violation of the rules below.

The grocery store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

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

Your grocery store took money for more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

The employees of the store accepted SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has immense experience handling SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The SNAP violation letter will have allegations in it, but most letters will mention violations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire Spodek Law Group, 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still decide that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will 100% issue another letter that specifically states 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 don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest 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 an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to override the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal federal 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 grocery store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. However, the 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 get electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in fines, and penalties. If you conduct a serious violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores don’t know the violations are even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to consult with a SNAP violation lawyer to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the findings of the USDA and fight any penalties. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose 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 has to be in writing at the store and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The store owner also be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in existence before the allegations, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks to check if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store owner that gets 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.