Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Washington Snap Violation Lawyers

If you accept EBT at your retail store, then may have gotten a official notice from the USDA. This notice is most likely a SNAP violation letter, which is alleging you have violated the SNAP program. The USDA will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, which will have records of transactions that occurred at your store which the government claims violates one or more genres of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation letter, you should definitely contact our law firm. 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 accept EBT payments.

About The SNAP Program

This program provides families with funds to buy food each month. The SNAP program benefits are given through an EBT card. The benefits on the EBT card aren’t for general use, and they can’t be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and are issued by each state individually where the consumer lives. The SNAP program is run on a national level by the government.

The program 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 counts as a SNAP violation

SNAP legal violations happen when a retail store is in violation of the rules below.

The store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

Your store submitted incorrect information on the retail stores application to accept EBT benefits.

The store took money for more EBT food stamps than actual food sales during the same period.

The employees of the store took SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t eligible to use the benefits.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

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

The charging letter is the initial step which is going to be taken by USDA to take away your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with, or without, prior warnings and can happen at any time. The charging letter contain details about alleged violations, but most of them will outline serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. 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 decide that your store has violated the rules. If that happens, the USDA will 100% issue a second letter which specifically states the governments legal verdict to suspend or disqualify the store based on the allegations set forth. Like before, you have ten days to protest this decision. If you choose not to, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, we file the legal papers and notify them appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft an appellate brief which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is needed to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to change the legal decision, in the Administrative Review, we will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. This process is like a normal federal court case, where you’ll be able to do 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 cases, many retail 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 purchase electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Penalties of violating SNAP can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If it’s believed you did a major violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In most cases, store owners didn’t know the violations were even occurring. In many situations, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP 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 SNAP violation letter is delivered to your grocery store, you only have ten days to respond to the violations. Your failure to respond to the allegations will permanently harm your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even though you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring 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 chooses to impose large fines to curb violations. The USDA will typically look to see if you have a compliance policy in place. The policy must be in writing and in effect when the allegations were filed.

The grocery store also be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and wasn’t drafted after the violation was made. The USDA will also look in order to check if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend any owner that gets a allegation 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.