Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Medford Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have received a official warning 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 attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have transactions which occurred at your grocery store which the government is saying is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should definitely speak to our our legal team. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on this card cannot be used for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. The SNAP program is operated on a national level by the government.

The government 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 retail store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is 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.

Your store submitted incorrect info on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

The employees of the store 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 violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning can come at any time. The violation letter will have allegations in it, 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still decide that a violation has occurred. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter which specifically states the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have 10 days to protest this verdict. If you choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, our team the necessary paperwork and notify them appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is necessary 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. This process is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our law firm 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 grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. 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. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe fines. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t know the violations are even occurring. Often, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak 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 grocery store, you have only ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even though 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 will challenge the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. It has to be in writing at the store and the policy must be 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 grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that gets a violation letter speak to with a SNAP violation attorney. Choosing not to respond 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.