Phone bills are so confusing that sometimes we don't even know what we're paying for, yet we pay anyway.

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Wendy Bell: Get Money Back On Phone Bills

Did you know there's a 50 percent chance that your bill is wrong, and you're being charged for services you don't need or lines you don't use?

Channel 4 Action News anchor Wendy Bell says 80 percent of people who subscribe to "bundled" packages that lump caller ID, call waiting and call forwarding together are actually throwing money away.

The good news? You can get your money back and sign up for only the services you need, and force your phone company to clean up your bill.

Sally Diehl is fuming over a fat cell phone bill, thanks to a $175 early termination fee that AT&T Wireless charged her by mistake.

Diehl: "When I asked for a supervisor, I was told, 'Tell me your story, I may be able to help you, I need that information before I pass this along.' Never got passed along to a supervisor."

Meanwhile, Norbert Wieczorkowski's peeved over pocket change -- an 11 cent charge on his home phone for wireless service provider portability, buried with all the extras there.

Wieczorkowski: "I don't own a cell phone."

From Diehl's three-figure foul-up to Wieczorkowski's 11-penny problem, how do you know which charges are right and which are wrong?

Enter the customer advocacy group Teletruth, which estimates the average American household pays $200 a year more than they should because phone companies over-charge them -- not with $10 here and $20 there, but with nickel-and-diming.

Bell sent several of her family's phone bills to Teletruth for a line-by-line audit. The company looked at every charge, fee and tax on every page.

The findings? Her phone company is charging her $7.10 a month for unlimited local calling she doesn't need. She's paying 75 cents a month more in state sales tax than she should, and an extra two cents a month for the Universal Service Fund.

In total, Bell is paying $7.87 more a month, and has been for years.

And the bottom line? The bundled package she has with caller ID and call waiting is twice as expensive as it would be for her to buy those services a la carte.

As for Wieczorkowski, his 11-cent fee is legitimate. Meanwhile, Diehl got her $175 back.

To get a free audit of your phone bill, contact Teletruth at www.teletruth.org or (800) 394-2834. A Teletruth representative will ask you to send three months of phone bills.

The audit is free, but Teletruth takes half of whatever cash it recovers for you.