Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

San Marcos Snap Violation Lawyers

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

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you must contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program provides families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are given via an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the EBT card aren’t 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 are issued by each state individually where the recipient lives. The SNAP program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The program and the benefits that come with it 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 violations happen when a store violates any of the following rules.

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

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

The store submitted false info on your grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

The employees of the store accepted SNAP benefits from an unauthorized person who isn’t allowed to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

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

The charging letter is the initial step which is taken by the USDA USDA to take away your EBT license. This comes with no warning can come at any time. The violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will detail serious allegations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still feel that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will issue a second letter that specifically states the agencies decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the alleged violations. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you choose not to, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the legal papers to notify the USDA appeal the decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to change the outcome of the violations.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers 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, USDA’s SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limits on how the funds can be used. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can include fines and penalties. If you conduct a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners don’t know the violations are even happening. In many situations, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. It’s helpful to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is presented to your grocery store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will fight the decision of the USDA and fight any penalties. The fines imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose imposes huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The grocery store must 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 to check if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, 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.