Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Mansfield Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then it’s possible have been the recipient of a a notice from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have records of transactions which happened at your store which the government is saying violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should contact our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your stores privilege to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program provides families with get food each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The funds on this card aren’t for general use, and they cannot be used for cash back services. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued in the state which the SNAP participant lives. This program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

This federal and it’s parameters are governed 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 violations occur when a store is in violation of the following rules.

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

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

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

Your grocery store redeemed more coupons than sale of actual food 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 we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

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

Sending the violation letter is the initial step which is taken by the USDA USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will detail serious allegations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire Spodek Law Group, we take into their hands 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 may still feel that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will issue another letter which outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the necessary paperwork to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and our team will draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This next phase is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We 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 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 limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. If 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 major violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your 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 don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the decision of the USDA and fight any decision. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does 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 and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The grocery store must has to 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 typically also looks to check if the grocery 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 store that receives 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.