Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Panama City Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then it’s possible have gotten a official notice from the USDA. The notice is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will have transactions which occurred at your grocery store which the USDA claims violates one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, 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 terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card cannot legally be used for general use, and they can’t be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the recipient lives. This program is run on a nationwide level by the government.

This program and it’s benefits 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations happen if and when a retail store is in violation of the following rules.

The retail store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

The store submitted false information on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

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

Your employees have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Our law firm has experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This letter may come with no warning and can happen at any time. The violation letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will detail serious allegations, with an attachment of details. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire our law firm, we handle 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 notice of violation, the USDA might still feel that a violation has occurred. If this happens, they’ll will definitely send another letter that specifically states their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the necessary paperwork and notify them appeal the decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery 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, SNAP recipients cant buy electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners don’t even know the violations were even happening. Often, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm 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. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will fight 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 purposefully does large fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The store owner 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 to see if the retail store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that receives a violation 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.