Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Henderson Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a letter from the USDA. The notification is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have 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 don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program provides families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed via an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on this card aren’t for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The 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 national level by the government.

This government and the benefits that come with it 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’s a SNAP Violation

SNAP legal violations occur when a store violates any of the following rules.

The store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

The store submitted false info on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The store redeemed more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food during the same period.

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

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

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

The charging letter is the first step which is taken by the USDA USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The SNAP violation letter will contain allegations, but most letters will lay out serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire Spodek Law Group, our lawyers 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will definitely send another letter which outlines their decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this verdict. If you choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the necessary paperwork and notify the USDA appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process is like a normal federal 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’s a lot of rules and regulations have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, 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 limits on how the funds can be used. For example, SNAP recipients cant purchase electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t know SNAP violations were even happening. Often, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation lawyer to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your grocery store, you have only 10 days to respond to the allegations. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate 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. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers can fight the decision of the USDA and fight any penalties. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose huge fines to curb 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 violations were filed.

The retailer 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 will also look to check if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store owner that receives 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.