Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

State College Snap Violation Lawyers

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

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

About The Program

The SNAP program provides families with funds to buy food each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed to consumers through an EBT card. The funds on this card cannot be used for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back services. The EBT cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the consumer lives. This program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

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

What counts as a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations happen when a grocery store violates any of the rules below.

The store took part intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting the 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 information on your retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

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

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

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

The charging letter is the first step which is going to be taken by USDA to remove your EBT license. This letter may come with no warning and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will mention serious allegations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire our law firm, our lawyers 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 SNAP violation letter, the USDA might still decide that a violation has occurred. If that happens, they’ll will 100% issue a second 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, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, our team the appeal to notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. Our lawyers collect necessary evidence, and our team will generate an appellate brief containing all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is necessary to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal court case, where you’ll be able to do discovery, file motions, and have a trial. Our lawyers 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 cases, many retail store owners don’t run into problems. However, SNAP 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 purchase electronic goods. If you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If you conduct a serious violation, then you may end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations were even occurring. Often, unethical employees who are misusing the SNAP program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is delivered to your store, you only have ten days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will challenge the decision of the USDA and fight any decision. The financial penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose imposes large fines to curb 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 allegations were filed.

The retailer must 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 see 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.

We highly recommend any owner 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.