Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Kearny Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a official warning from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have transactions that occurred at your retail store that the government is saying violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the government will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with money each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card are not for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back transactions. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the federal government.

This government 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

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

The store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect information on the store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

The store took money for more coupons than actual food sales at the same time.

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

Spodek Law Group has experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

The charging letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning can come at any time. The violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will mention violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire Spodek Law Group, we 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA may still believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will definitely send another letter which specifically states their decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to protest this decision. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we file the appeal to notify them we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do 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 issues adhering to them. However, the SNAP program 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 get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t know SNAP violations were even happening. Often, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the findings of the USDA and fight any penalties. The penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy must be in writing and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The grocery store also has to be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the retail 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 grocery store owner that gets a allegation 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.