Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Rochester Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then you might have been the recipient of a a notice from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is claiming you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will include proof to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain transactions that happened at your retail store that the government claims is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you should speak to our our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to take EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card aren’t for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back services. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. This program is operated on a national 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’s a SNAP Violation

SNAP legal violations happen if and when a grocery store is in violation of the following rules.

The grocery store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted incorrect information on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

Sending the letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your EBT license. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter will contain allegations, but most letters will lay out violations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. Once 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 violation letter, the USDA may still feel that a violation has occurred. If that happens, the USDA will issue another letter that specifically states 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 this verdict. If you choose not to, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we file the appeal and notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the decision, in the Administrative Review, we’ll 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 grocery store retailer, there are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many retail 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, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in fines, and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners don’t even know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, dishonest employees who are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to speak with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your grocery store, you have only 10 days to respond to the allegations. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. If you don’t respond the USDA will make a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our SNAP appeals lawyers will challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing and the policy must be at the time the allegations 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 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 management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any store that receives a violation 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.