They're not in a position of power. They're offering a commodity service, and they're positioning themselves as "the option with poor customer service."
I don't think that's going to attract much in the way of customers, or investment.
I don't wish them ill; but they really need to stop digging, and they haven't figured that out yet.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm curious: if this is a "commodity service", what competitors of BP would you recommend? I don't mean just some consultant: where can I go where the process will be similar, in that I don't have to talk to anyone and I don't have to hire anyone but I just have to enter my particulars and pay for what I want?
This list may contain errors, but UsabilitySciences, BugPub, Testlio, UserTesting, UserZoom, RemoteResearch, and uTest all look to offer related value propositions. Craigslist, CrowdFlower, ClickWorker, CloudCrowd, Reddit's /r/forhire and Amazon's Mechanical Turk can probably be used similarly.
When I've done UX testing, I've gone out, located the real target market of the specific product we were testing, and tested in-person. A couple times this process included a Craigslist post, but generally it was fully in-person. As such, I'm not qualified to recommend a specific service.
I don't think that's going to attract much in the way of customers, or investment.
I don't wish them ill; but they really need to stop digging, and they haven't figured that out yet.