Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

West New York Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your grocery store, then it’s possible have been the recipient of a a letter from the USDA. This notification is probably a SNAP violation letter, which is claiming 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 transactions that happened at your store that the government claims is in violation of one or more genres of violations.

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 don’t respond, the USDA will terminate/suspend your grocery store’s ability to take EBT.

About The Program

This program provides families with money each month. The SNAP program benefits are given via an EBT card. The benefits on the card aren’t for general use, 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 which the SNAP participant lives. The program is operated on a nationwide level by the federal government.

This 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 counts as a SNAP violation

Snap violations happen when a grocery store is in violation of the rules below.

The retail store was involved intrafficking SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

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

The store submitted false info on the grocery stores application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store took money for more coupons than sale of actual food at the same time.

Your employees took SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

How we can help defend you against a SNAP violation notice

Spodek Law Group has immense experience handling SNAP appeals letters. We can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all 3 phases of a SNAP Violation action.

Sending the letter is the initial step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning can come at any time. The charging letter contain details about alleged violations, but most letters will lay out violations, and have attached documents detailing the violations. You have only 10 days to respond. After 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 feel that a violation has occurred. If that happens, they’ll will issue another letter which specifically states the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the alleged violations. You have 10 days to appeal this. If you don’t, you’ll be unable to protest the USDA decision. Once you hire our firm, our team the appeal to notify the USDA we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and our team will draft the necessary appeals briefs containing all of the case law, legal evidence, etc. which is necessary to overturn the decision.

If the USDA refuses to override the binding 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 federal 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 have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, 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 limits on how the funds can be used. For example, people getting SNAP benefits cant buy electronic goods. If, and when, you violate the laws, you’ll get 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 may end up with either a permanent or temporary disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t know the violations are 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 ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is sent to your grocery store, you only have 10 days to respond to the claims by the USDA. Your failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will deliver a verdict even if you don’t respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Hiring a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers will challenge the findings of the USDA and appeal any decision. The financial penalties imposed can expensive – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose does huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. The policy has to be in writing and the policy must be at the time the violations were filed.

The retailer also be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA typically also looks in order to check if the retail store owners benefited from the violations, or were aware of the violation. If the management was involved it can lead to disqualification.

We highly recommend 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.