Thanks to all you guys who offered info - we've decided to change and are doing a bit if research between T-mobile and a pay/go phone ... so much out there its difficult to "get it" ... so will move on from Verizon just on principle as it won't even allow me to see my account at the moment ...
As long as folks can keep the same phone number, then it will always leave all of us with choices ... a good thing. Will let you know what we do, but at the moment, looks like T-mobile is the front-runner ...as per wa8yxm advice earlier.