Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Rancho Cordova Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a official notice from the USDA. This notice is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will contain records of transactions that occurred at your grocery store that the government is saying violates one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the government will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

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

This federal and it’s parameters 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 violations happen when a retail store violates any of the rules below.

The retail store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted false information on the store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

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

The employees of the store accepted SNAP benefits from someone who shouldn’t be allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Our law firm has immense experience handling SNAP appeals letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning and can appear at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will detail violations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire Spodek Law Group, 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.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the notice of violation, the USDA may still decide that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter which outlines the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal the verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the legal papers and notify them appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

In the event the USDA refuses to overturn the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers 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 attorneys can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there’s a lot of rules and regulations have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most normal situations, many grocery store owners have no problems 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 purchase electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe fines. If you conduct a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores don’t even know the violations were even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your retail store, you have only ten days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the findings of the USDA and appeal any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully chooses to impose 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 at the time the violations were filed.

The grocery store also be able to prove the compliance policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA will also look to check if the owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that receives a allegation 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.