Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Little Rock Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a letter of warning from the USDA. This letter is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain transactions that occurred at your store that the government claims violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our 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 stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with get food each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the EBT card cannot legally be used for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. This program is run on a national level by the government.

The 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 counts as a SNAP violation

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

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

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

The store submitted false info on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food at the same time.

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

Sending the violation letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with no warning can come at any time. The charging letter will contain allegations, but most letters will outline serious allegations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire our law firm, 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 notice of violation, the USDA may still decide that a violation has occurred. If that happens, the USDA will definitely send another letter which outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to protest the decision. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the appeal and notify them appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We 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 purchase electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If you conduct a major violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners don’t know SNAP violations are even occurring. In many situations, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you only have 10 days to respond to the allegations. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will generate a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will challenge the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing at the store and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

The grocery store also has to 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 see if the grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended 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.