Santa Fe Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then may have gotten a official warning from the USDA. This letter is most likely a SNAP violation notice, which is stating you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions which happened at your grocery store that the government claims is in violation of one or more categories of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation notice, you should definitely contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the government will suspend your stores privilege to accept EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are given through an EBT card. The funds on the card cannot legally be used for general usage, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back transactions. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the recipient lives. The SNAP program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

The SNAP government and it’s parameters 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’s a SNAP Violation

Snap violations occur if and when a retail store violates any of the following rules.

The grocery store was involved inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

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

Your store took money for more EBT food stamps than food sales at the same time.

Your employees accepted SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Our law firm has experience handling SNAP violation 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 taken by the USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. This letter may come with no warning can come at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most of them will mention serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After you hire our law firm, we take into their hands 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, the USDA will issue another letter that outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the retail store based on the allegations set forth. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, then you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we’ll file the necessary paperwork and notify them we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief which contains all of the legal laws, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to overturn the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like 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 have no issues adhering to them. However, the 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, and when, you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can include fines and penalties. If it’s believed you did a major SNAP violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t know the violations were even occurring. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation appeals lawyer to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a charge letter is delivered to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even though you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you the ability to fight for your rights. Our lawyers can discredit the decision of the USDA and appeal any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose chooses to impose large fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing at the store and in effect at the time the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also be able to prove the above mentioned policy was in place before the charge, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA typically also looks to check if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store that gets a letter consult 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.