Their advert actually says they pay 10,000rmb flight allowance plus 2,000rmb travel allowance.

It changes from ad to ad. 8k, 10k. This dynamic pricing is very common with Chinese online teaching ads. Figures change all the time.

They used to offer 6500, then 7000, now 7100. Two weeks from now it may change again.

Yuncheng English Village sent me on a dodgy visa run to Qingdao at my expense and then to Hong Kong where the paperwork was wrong so I had to hang out there at my own expense for over a week while they sent me the documents. I never to the day I left saw any of the promised reimbursements for the expenses. Needless to say I left at Spring Festival and found a job in Beijing. I received verbally abusive emails saying that I will be blacklisted and the like but nothing came of it. At least the new school were able to do things properly and even though I had to return to Hong Kong to cancel the mess that Yuncheng EV made of everything I have had no problems since.

This poor experience happens most of the time with new Yuncheng English Village teachers.

For those going on one, Yuncheng EV will tell you to not open the package. Bollocks. Matters not. Open it and see your faked, copied, or stolen credentials inside.

I received verbally abusive emails saying that I will be blacklisted and the like but nothing came of it.

There is no such blacklist in China for teachers - they were threatening you, as that is their business model.

A select few are cool with the visa run, get reimbursed, have fun with friends in Hong Kong, etc. Others, not so much. There is no way to tell how you will be treated. Chances are high you will pay out of pocket as you did.

Yuncheng English Village almost always bring people in on an invite letter set in Beijing, then get new teachers an 'F' (M now?) visa to start, then send them on a visa reset run to Hong Kong or Qingdao in Shandong.

The 'F' visa is not a business visa any longer it is a visit visa for study tours and such; the business visa is now the M visa. Strictly for business, which a teacher employee is not. This visa gambit is now expressly illegal, no idea why Yuncheng EV constantly do this as they are licensed to direct hire teachers by the .gov and one would think would have the ability to process Z visas locally.

Your story is one that I heard from just about every single new hire, and often they would travel in groups. The Ameson AYC bunch that landed in Shanghai did it as a group (likely so EV could get their hands on the Cengage MyELT textbooks and copy them). New hires often do it as a group to keep it simple and fun, lower costs, and help each other out.

The Qingdao visa run is to someone there that does them a favour. Since Yuncheng English Village place many advertisements through rememberesl.com which is based out of the Shandong Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Qingdao (easier to just refer to is at the National Congress or the Communist Party of China, Shandong office) it is likely that they are having someone do them a favour high up in the party and process visas illegally.

The fact is that the PROPER procedure is to get an invite letter and contract when back home. You take said invite letter, go to your nearest PRC Consulate, and get your Z visa there. You fly to China, go to your town, settle in, and go to work. If they have to always hire on a non-Z visa and then send people to Hong Kong or Qingdao, Shandong, to 'reset' the visa, they are doing something dodgy and illegal.

Which, again, is odd as EV are licensed by the .gov to hire and place foreign teachers.

Rememberesl.com are in the Qingdao Laoshan People's Government Centre, Shandong CPPCC Science and Technology Mansion, No. 228 Liaoning Road, Qingdao, China. 266012. http://www.rememberesl.com/3.htm

Everyone I know who went there, paid the trip out of pocket. Mostly long bus rides or airfare. Fast train not yet to that part of China from Shanxi. A long, uncomfortable (if cheap) bus ride.