Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

New Brunswick Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then may have been the recipient of a a notice from the USDA. The letter is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions which occurred at your store which the government is saying violates one or more genres 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 don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with get food each month. The SNAP program benefits are given through an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot legally be used for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the government.

The program and it’s parameters are governed by the US 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 store is in violation of the rules below.

The store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted false info on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Spodek Law Group has experience managing SNAP violations letters. We can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP Violation action.

The charging letter is the first 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 SNAP violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will lay out violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire our law firm, we 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 decide that a violation has occurred. If that happens, they’ll will issue another letter which outlines the agencies decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have 10 days to protest this verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the necessary paperwork to notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate 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 legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This process is like a normal 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 food store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limits on how the funds can be used. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If you conduct a serious violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners didn’t even know SNAP violations are even happening. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to consult with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and fight any penalties. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose does huge fines to curb violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy has to be in writing at the store and in effect when the violations were filed.

The store owner must be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. 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. 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.