Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Richland Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have received a letter from the USDA. This notice is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation notice, which will contain transactions which happened at your grocery store that the USDA claims violates one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our legal team. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your stores ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

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

This federal and it’s parameters are governed by the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What does it mean to have a SNAP violation

Snap violations happen if and when a retail store is in violation of the rules below.

The grocery store is accused ofthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted false info on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

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

Your employees accepted SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

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

Sending the violation letter is the first step taken by the USDA to remove your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can appear at any time. The violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will detail serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire Spodek Law Group, we handle 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, they’ll will issue another letter which outlines the agencies legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the accusations previously mentioned. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, our team the appeal and notify the government appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is needed to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process 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 normal situations, many grocery store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP 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 should expect getting 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 a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations are even occurring. In many situations, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation attorney in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is sent to your store, you have only ten days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers can fight the decision of the USDA and fight any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose chooses to impose huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA look to see if you have a store compliance policy. It has to be in writing at the store and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The grocery store 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 typically also looks in order to check if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any grocery store owner 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.