Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Redding Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then it’s possible have gotten a official notice from the USDA. The letter is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will have transactions which happened at your grocery store that the government claims is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you must speak to our our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT.

About The Program

This program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The benefits on the card cannot legally be used for general use, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

The federal and the benefits that come with it 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 legal violations occur when a grocery store violates any of the rules below.

The retail store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

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

Your grocery store redeemed more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food over the same period.

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

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

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

The charging letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The violation letter will contain allegations, but most letters will outline serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire Spodek Law Group, our lawyers handle 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 might still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, they’ll will 100% issue another letter which outlines their decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have 10 days to protest the decision. If you choose not to, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, our team the necessary paperwork to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief containing all of the legal laws, evidence, etc. which is critical to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to override the decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do 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 cases, many grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, the SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy 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 it’s believed you did a major violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, store owners didn’t know SNAP violations were even occurring. Often, it’s dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your store, you only have 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers can discredit the findings of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The penalties 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 typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and the policy must be when the violations were filed.

The store owner must has to be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks in order to see if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, 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. 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.