Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Mount Pleasant Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then it’s possible have been the recipient of a a official notice from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, which will contain transactions which happened at your grocery store which the USDA is saying violates one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, 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 grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

This program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are given with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the EBT card cannot be used for general use, and they can’t be used for cash back services. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP program and the benefits that come with it 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 legal violations occur when a store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting the benefits, or stealing the benefits.

The grocery store took 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 store redeemed more EBT food stamps than food sales during the same period.

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience managing SNAP violations letters. We can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can happen at any time. The SNAP violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once 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.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the violation letter, the USDA may still feel that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter that specifically states the agencies decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, our team the legal papers and notify the USDA appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the violation claim, 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 be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We 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 grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. If, and when, 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 serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores don’t even know SNAP violations are even occurring. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to ensure 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 violations. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and fight any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose 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 in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The retailer also be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look in order to see if the retail 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 owner that receives a 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.