The determination arrived. The terminal stopped the same day.
A permanent disqualification isn’t suspended while you appeal. It takes effect on receipt of the determination, which is why owners find out by watching a swipe decline. What remains is a written process with short deadlines and a real standard of review - ten days to request administrative review under 7 CFR 279, then thirty days to file in federal district court under 7 U.S.C. 2023, where the review is de novo. Both are winnable. Neither waits.
We owe loyalty to only you.
When you’re looking online, you have multiple options. There are so many firms advertising SNAP defense. Thankfully, your search is over. Spodek Law Group P.C. offers premier white-glove service and we’re unafraid of fighting. Unlike firms that are more focused on their relationship with the agency than with you, we owe loyalty to only YOU. Your store, your family, your license.
One reason our firm has such a high success rate is that we’re selective about who we work with. If we’re choosing to work with you, it’s because we think we can make a positive impact. That’s vastly different from firms that take on any client willing to pay. When you reach out, you start with a risk-free consultation - and you can ask us anything you want, regardless of how long it takes.
If there’s a way to keep your store in the program, we’ll find it. That’s the whole job.
The store keeps trading. The authorization is what ends.
A determination isn’t the end of the record. It’s a deadline.
The regional office decided on the file it had. Administrative review is the last stage where new evidence can be added, and what goes in there also sets up whatever happens in district court. Everything from here is timed.
Get the review filedFour things to do before the ten days run out.
7 CFR 278.6(e)(1)
RETAILER DEFENSE
UPDATED 2026
What to do the week a permanent disqualification arrives
The determination letter is short and its effect is immediate. Where FNS has found trafficking, 278.6(e)(1) prescribes permanent disqualification, and the action takes effect on the date the firm receives the notice - regardless of whether review is requested. Most owners learn this operationally rather than legally: the terminal declines a swipe on a Tuesday morning and nobody at the store knows why yet.
The first task is unglamorous and decisive. Fix the receipt date from the certified mail record, because the request for administrative review under 7 CFR 279 has to be filed within ten days of it, and the deadline isn’t forgiving. The second is to get the agency file - the ALERT output, the investigator memoranda, whatever prior contacts exist - because the review is a paper proceeding and you can’t answer a record you haven’t read.
Administrative review is genuinely different from what came before. The file leaves the regional office that charged you and goes to an Administrative Review Officer, and new evidence is allowed. That last point is the part owners miss. Everything that should have been filed in the ten days after the charge letter can still go in here: wholesale invoices, itemized register exports, inventory counts, photographs of the coolers and shelves, statements from employees and suppliers, and the dated compliance file. The officer issues the final agency decision, and that decision is what a court reviews.
If the final decision still stands, 7 U.S.C. 2023 permits a complaint in federal district court within thirty days, and the review is de novo. The court determines the validity of the agency action on the evidence rather than deferring to the conclusion FNS reached, and it can take testimony. This is a real remedy and it’s used, but it’s expensive, it takes time, and the practical strength of the case is usually whatever the review record already contains.
Two traps are worth naming. First, transferring the store: selling or restructuring after a disqualification triggers a separate money penalty under 278.6(g), doubled where the disqualification was permanent, and buyers discover it at closing. Second, running benefits through anyone else’s terminal. That’s a fresh violation of a much more serious kind, and it converts an administrative problem into a criminal one.
If a determination letter arrived this week, call today. The ten days are already running, and the only version of this case that gets better is the one where the missing documents go in before the record closes.
When the biggest cases break, we get the call. That same team answers your ten days.
When the networks need a federal file explained in plain English, they call us.
This bench answers its own phone. Put it on your case.
Tell us what happened. Eight fields, two minutes - and a lawyer reads it today.
Read us the first line of the letter. We’ll tell you what day you’re on.
Bring the envelope, the attachment, and your invoices if you have them. If you don’t have them, bring the letter. The consultation is risk-free, it stays between us, and it happens today - ask us anything, regardless of how long it takes.