Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Montebello Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have been the recipient of a a official warning from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, which will have transactions that happened at your store which the USDA is saying violates one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should contact our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with get food each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on this card cannot legally be used for general use, 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 in the state where the recipient lives. The SNAP program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The program and it’s benefits 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’s a SNAP Violation

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

The store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted false information on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has immense experience managing SNAP appeals letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the violation letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The SNAP violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will lay out violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire Spodek Law Group, our lawyers 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 believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter which specifically states their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the alleged violations. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we’ll file the legal papers to notify them appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to overturn the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal 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 are many laws you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, the SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did 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 SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney 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 10 days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It must be in writing and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The grocery store must 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 in order to check 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.

We highly recommend any store that gets 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.