China tour $99 - big mistake.

A little piggy started a journey to travel Asia in April 2014 that ultimately ended in June 2014. A two months no pay leave from work.  

My mother, sister, and I joined a $99 tour of China from "__________". (name withheld for various reasons)
It says $99 USD, but there are many "OTHER" costs associated with it.

SO BASICALLY:
$99 USD + tips (mandatory $10 per day x 9 days) + $120 USD train fee + $150 other expense (shows) + BUS DRIVER tips that they ask for on the last day of your tour (+ extra $70USD).

The tour did include accommodations at 4-5 stars hotels like Hilton, Renaissance, etc; AYCE breakfast; lunch and dinner. 

(CONS)
Let's talk about the lunch and dinner. For these two meals, you will be eating with other people in your group. Generally, there have to be at least 10 people per table. You don't get to choose what you want to eat, it is a pre-set menu, and when you get to the restaurant you will usually see a shore of tour groups eating there. These restaurants seems to make money out of "tourists" - who knows, the leftovers might be saved for the next group.  o.o  k, that's nasty.

There are many mandatory "pit-stops" along the way (shopping). These are not the shopping areas that we enjoy, it's the ones where they bring you to so that they can sell you "OVERPRICED" items. Be prepared to stay there for at least an hour. If your group finished shopping very quickly, they won't bring you back to the tour bus, rather you would have to wait in the store. A quick thing about these shopping stops, THE TOUR GUIDE WHO BRINGS YOU HERE HAS A SHARE OF THE PROFIT. NO JOKE.  For the last 5 days during our tour, we had a different tour guide who is well versed in one area -- for example, one was an expert in mattress, the other an expert in jade, another an expert in tea, another in silk, and many more. Each of these "guides" was trying to hard-sell products to us- and people in our group.
YES, we did get scammed $700 USD - will talk about this later.

The tour bus during our stay in Beijing was totally BEAT-UP. The HK style yellow van which you see in a lot of HK dramas which they used to kidnap people with.

The tour guide spoke on and on about medicine and health.. but he smokes..?? hypocrite?? In the end, apparently, this guy tried to hard-sell people Chinese herbs. He was very irritated during the second day when nobody bought any medicine. On the last day, he was super happy (can tell by his body language) when our group bought over ($2000), my mother $700 USD (I was going ballistic - told her she was being scammed cause tea bags do not cost that much -- she told me to shut up --great).

The tour guide spoke Mandarin. My sister and I only know Cantonese. [It was advertised that the guide spoke Mandarin and Cantonese - WTF.]