Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Rancho Santa Margarita Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then may have been the recipient of a a letter from the USDA. This notice is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, and it will contain transactions that occurred at your store that the USDA claims violates one or more categories of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the government will suspend your stores ability to take EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with money each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card cannot legally be used for general use, and they can’t be used for cash back services. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the consumer lives. The 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’s a SNAP Violation

SNAP legal violations occur if and when a retail store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect information on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store redeemed more coupons than sale of actual food at the same time.

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

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Our law firm has immense experience managing SNAP violations letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The violation letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will mention serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA may still believe that a violation has occurred. If that happens, they’ll will 100% issue a second letter which specifically states the agencies decision to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this verdict. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, our team the appeal and notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to override the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal case, where you’ll be able to do 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 cases, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, USDA’s 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. If you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a major 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. In many situations, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation lawyer to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond will permanently harm 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 decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing at the store and in effect at the time the violations were filed.

The store owner also has to be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look to check if the retail store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that receives a allegation 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.