Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Troy Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your grocery store, then you might have gotten a letter from the USDA. This letter is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is stating you violated the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions which occurred at your store which the USDA is saying violates one or more groups of violations.

The first thing 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 choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to take EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with funds to buy food each month. The SNAP program benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The SNAP benefits on the card aren’t for general usage, and they cannot 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 which the SNAP participant lives. The SNAP program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

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

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

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

The store submitted false information on the store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

Your store redeemed more coupons than food sales during the same period.

The employees of the store accepted SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Our law firm has immense experience handling SNAP violation letters. Our team of attorneys can handle your SNAP violation process in all phases of a SNAP violation action.

Sending the violation letter is the first step which is taken by the USDA USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with no warning can come at any time. The charging letter will have allegations in it, but most of them will detail serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire our law firm, we 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 a violation has occurred. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue another letter that outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the 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 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 the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to overturn the decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This next phase is like a normal court 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 have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many retail store owners have no problems adhering to them. However, SNAP can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you’ll probably get a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe fines. If you conduct a serious violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores don’t even know SNAP violations are even happening. Often, dishonest employees who 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 sent to your retail store, you have only 10 days to respond to the violations. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers can fight the decision of the USDA and fight any decision. The penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose does huge fines to in order to curb future violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and the policy must be at the time the allegations were filed.

The retailer also has to 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 typically also looks in order to see if the retail store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the owners were aware of the fraud. If the managers were involved, it can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any grocery store owner that gets 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.