Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Layton Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a official notice from the USDA. The notification is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, which will contain records of transactions that occurred at your grocery store which the government is saying violates one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you should contact our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the government will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT.

About The Program

This program helps families with funds to buy food each month. The SNAP program benefits are given through an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the EBT card cannot be used for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP program and it’s parameters 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’s a SNAP Violation

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

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

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

Your store submitted incorrect information on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

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

Sending the violation letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with no warning and can appear at any time. The violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will lay out violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once 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 notice of violation, the USDA may still decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will issue another letter that outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the necessary paperwork to notify them appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will 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 food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, 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, SNAP recipients cant buy electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, store owners don’t know SNAP violations are even occurring. In many situations, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your grocery store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can challenge 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 on purpose does large fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA will also look to see if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that gets a violation 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.