Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Pittsburg Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a letter from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you violated the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have transactions that occurred at your store that the government is saying is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

This program helps families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed via an EBT card. The funds on the card cannot be used for general use, and they can’t 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 SNAP program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The government and it’s benefits 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 legal violations happen if and when a retail 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 theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect info on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store redeemed more EBT food stamps than food sales during the same period.

The employees of the store 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 immense experience handling SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP action.

The charging letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This letter may come with no warning and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will lay out violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire Spodek Law Group, our lawyers 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 believe that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter that specifically states their legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the verdict. If you don’t, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, we’ll file the appeal to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief which contains all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

In the event the USDA refuses to override the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal 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 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, USDA’s SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant get 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 you conduct a major violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t know the violations are even happening. Often, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the allegations. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the decision 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 on purpose imposes large fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing at the store and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The retailer must be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks in order to see if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that receives a letter speak to with a SNAP violation attorney. Choosing not to respond 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.