Olympia Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then you might have been the recipient of a a official notice from the USDA. The notification is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, which will contain records of transactions that happened at your store that the USDA is saying is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our 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 accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with funds to buy food each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on this card are not for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back transactions. The cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. This program is operated on a nationwide level by the federal government.

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

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

The retail 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 grocery store took money for more EBT food stamps than actual food sales during the same period.

Your employees have taken 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 managing SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the letter is the first step taken by the USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. This letter may come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will detail serious allegations, 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the violation letter, the USDA may still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will definitely send a second letter that specifically states their decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have 10 days to appeal this verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, our team the necessary paperwork to notify them we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal 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 which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners have no issues adhering to them. However, the 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. 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 you conduct a serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t even know SNAP violations were even happening. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to consult with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the allegations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even though 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 the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the findings of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The store owner also be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA will also look 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 grocery store owner that receives 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.