Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

West Des Moines Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then it’s possible have received a official warning from the USDA. The letter is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you are in violation of the SNAP program. The government will attach a number of pages to the SNAP violation letter, and it will contain records of transactions that occurred at your grocery store that the USDA is saying is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

The first thing after you get a SNAP violation notice, you should speak to our our law firm. It’s critical you understand, you only have 10 days to respond. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your stores privilege to take EBT.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with get food each month. The SNAP program benefits are given with an EBT card. The funds on this card aren’t for general usage, and they cannot be used for cash back services. The cards took over for food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued in the state where the recipient lives. The program is run on a nationwide level by the federal government.

This federal and it’s benefits are under handled 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 violations occur if and when a store is in violation of the following rules.

The store is accused oftrafficking SNAP benefits. This can mean fraudulently accepting taking the benefits, or theft of the benefits.

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

The store submitted false info on your store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

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

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

Defending against a SNAP Violation Letter

Spodek Law Group has experience handling SNAP appeals letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP action.

Sending the letter is the first step taken by the USDA to remove your right to take EBT benefits. The letter can come with no warning and can happen at any time. The charging letter has a variety of allegations, but most letters will mention violations, with an attachment of details. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. Once you hire our law firm, our lawyers handle all of the communicationswith the USDA and for compiling all the necessary evidence, and drafting a response to the USDA.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the violation letter, the USDA might still believe that a violation has occurred. If this happens, the USDA will definitely send a second letter that outlines their decision to suspend or disqualify the store based on the accusations previously mentioned. Like before, you have ten days to appeal this decision. If you choose not to, you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our firm, our team the legal papers to notify the USDA appeal the decision. Our lawyers gather necessary evidence, and we will draft generate the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

In the event the USDA refuses to overturn the 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 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 are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery 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, people getting SNAP benefits cant get 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 serious violation, then you might end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t even know the violations were even happening. Often, dishonest employees are misusing the SNAP program. It’s helpful to speak with a SNAP violation attorney to make sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your retail store, you only have 10 days to respond to the allegations. Failure to respond to the allegations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will generate a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. In the absence of a SNAP violation attorney, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our SNAP appeals lawyers can challenge the findings of the USDA and fight any decision. The fines imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA purposefully imposes huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It must be in writing at the store and in effect when the violations were filed.

The grocery store must be able to prove the compliance 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 grocery store owners benefited in any way from the fraud, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any owner that receives 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.