Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Lancaster Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a letter of warning from the USDA. The letter is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have transactions which happened at your store which the government is saying is in violation of one or more groups 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 USDA will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed through an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card are not for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. The program is run on a national level by the federal government.

This program and it’s benefits are under handled 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 occur if and when a store is in violation of the following rules.

The retail store was involved intrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

Your store took money for more EBT food stamps than food sales during the same period.

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

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

Spodek Law Group has experience managing SNAP appeals letters. We can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

The charging letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The SNAP violation letter will contain allegations, but most of them will lay out violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire Spodek Law Group, our lawyers take into their hands 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 notice of violation, the USDA may still decide that a violation has occurred. If that happens, the USDA will definitely send a second letter which specifically states the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the verdict. If you don’t, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the necessary paperwork and notify them appeal the decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to change the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process is like a normal 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 retail store owners don’t run into problems. 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, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If you conduct a major SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners don’t even know SNAP violations are even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to consult with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your store, you have only ten days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose imposes huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. It must be in writing at the store and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

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

We highly recommend any 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.