I can imagine the investors in this company would not be pleased with this kind of scrappy nonsense, especially given the industry.
> We’re not going to waste days chasing them. But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art.
It's likely that the CEO is not aware(...hopefully); it's a good idea to reach out to them asap. Do try and point out what's going on.
If anything, the sooner you reach out, you'll be doing the business (and whoever is backing it) a favor: trust has been misplaced. Somebody chose a very unprofessional path with what (one can assume) is a very critical system.