Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Moline 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 probably a SNAP violation notice, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have records of transactions that happened at your grocery store which the USDA claims is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you must contact our legal team. 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 take EBT.

About The Program

This program provides families with funds to buy food each month. These benefits are distributed to consumers via an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card cannot legally be used for general use, and they can’t be used for 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 consumer lives. The SNAP program is operated on a nationwide level by the government.

This 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 happen if and when a grocery store is in violation of the following rules.

The store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted incorrect information on the store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

The store took money for more coupons than food sales at the same time.

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Spodek Law Group has immense experience handling SNAP violations letters. We can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the violation letter, the USDA might still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, they’ll will issue a second letter which specifically states the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this decision. If you don’t, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our law firm, our team the appeal to notify the government appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to override the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This next phase is like a normal case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like 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’s a lot of rules and regulations you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, 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, people getting SNAP benefits cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t know the violations are even occurring. Often, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your retail store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even if 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 lawyers can challenge the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose 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 must be in writing and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also 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 will also look to check if the retail store owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it 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.