Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Santa Barbara Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then you might have received a letter from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, and it will have transactions which occurred at your store that the USDA claims is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, 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 suspend your grocery store’s ability to take EBT.

About The SNAP Program

The SNAP program helps families with a certain amount of money each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on the EBT card are not for general usage, and they can’t be used for cash back transactions. The 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 operated on a nationwide level by the government.

This 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 does it mean to have a SNAP violation

Snap violations occur when a grocery store violates any of the following rules.

The store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

The store submitted incorrect info on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store redeemed more EBT food stamps than sale of actual food at the same time.

The employees of the store have taken 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 experience managing SNAP appeals letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This comes with, or without, prior warnings and can appear at any time. The charging letter will contain allegations, 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. 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.

Once the USDA reviews your answer to the violation letter, the USDA may still believe that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will definitely send another letter that outlines their decision 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, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our lawyers, we’ll file the appeal and notify the USDA appeal the decision. We’ll collect necessary evidence, and our team will draft an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. This next phase 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 which you have to adhere to for EBT. In most cases, 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 limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant purchase electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll get a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties 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, store owners don’t know SNAP violations are even happening. 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 attorney in order 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 by the USDA. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you won’t be able to retain EBT benefits. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can discredit the findings of the USDA and appeal any penalties. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully does 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 and the policy must be when the allegations were filed.

The retailer must 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 will also look in order to see if the retail store owners benefited from the violations, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store that receives a 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.