HOUSTON -- There's not much the public can do about counterfeit bills, as one Houston-area woman found out. She almost paid the price for someone else's fraud.

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Imagine being given a $100 bill directly from a bank and then, less than an hour later, someone is taking it away from you because they say it's counterfeit.

It happened to Lisa Young, who goes to the same bank every payday to cash her check.

"This is where my company banks," Young said.

After cashing her paycheck recently, Lisa went to a credit union to deposit the money into her own account. She never suspected she was carrying a counterfeit $100 bill.

"She said, 'You have $100 counterfeit money and they are calling the Secret Service.' And I said, 'Could you repeat that again?'" Young said.

Young was shocked. She said she didn't do anything between cashing her check and heading to her credit union. But since the bill was suspected as counterfeit, she had to let them keep it.

"That was going to buy this week's groceries. That is money coming out of my family's mouth," she said.

Young thought it was unfair she should lose part of her pay when a bank gave her the counterfeit bill in the first place.

"This particular counterfeit was reproduced," said Lamont Rogers, with the U.S. Secret Service. He said that it is not the bank's responsibility, but Young's.

"Ultimately the responsibility is the person who presents it for passage," Rogers said. "In this case, the consumer, absolutely."

"A hundred dollars may not be a lot to them, but to an average person, it is," Young said.

KPRC-TV in Houston agreed and went to speak with the bank managers. A few days later, they agreed to give Young another $100 bill -- a real bill.

The Secret Service said consumers should get to know their money so they can spot counterfeits before it is too late.

For more information on how to detect counterfeit money, visit the Secret Service's Web site.