Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Pflugerville Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then may have been the recipient of a a official notice from the USDA. The notice is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, and it will contain records of transactions which happened at your retail store that the USDA claims violates one or more categories of violations.

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 suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

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

The SNAP program and it’s benefits 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 violations happen if and 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.

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

The store submitted false info on the grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The store took money for more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

Your employees accepted SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

Our law firm has immense experience managing SNAP violation letters. We can handle your SNAP violation process in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the letter is the first step taken by the USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. This comes with, or without, prior warnings can come at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will lay out serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once 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 notice of violation, the USDA might still decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will 100% issue another letter that outlines their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to protest the verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the appeal and notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief which contains all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to change the violation claim, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This process is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our law firm 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 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 limits on how the funds can be used. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe fines. If it’s believed you did a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t even know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your store, you only have 10 days to respond to the violations. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even though 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 lawyers will discredit the findings of the USDA and fight any penalties. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does large fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. The policy has to be in writing and the policy must be when the allegations were filed.

The store owner also has to 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 in any way from the fraud, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any grocery store owner that receives a violation 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.