Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Melbourne Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a letter of warning from the USDA. The letter is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will contain records of transactions that occurred at your store which the government claims violates one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the USDA will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with funds to buy food each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers via an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot be used 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 the card is issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. This program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and it’s parameters are under handled by the United States 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 violations happen if and when a grocery store is in violation of the following rules.

The grocery store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

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

Your store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food over the same period.

Your employees took SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience handling SNAP appeals letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process 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. This letter may come with no warning can come at any time. The SNAP violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will mention serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire our law firm, we 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still feel that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will 100% issue another letter which specifically states the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have 10 days to appeal the verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our law firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many retail 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 limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe fines. If you conduct a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your store, you have only 10 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 don’t respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, 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 fight any decision. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The grocery store also 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 in order to check if the 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 gets a 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.