daylight robbery

Fig. the practice of blatantly or grossly overcharging. It's daylight robbery to charge that amount of money for a hotel room! The cost of renting a car at that place is daylight robbery.

a situation in which you are charged much more for something than you think you should have to pay Three pounds for an orange juice? It's daylight robbery!

Charging exorbitant prices, as in The amount you're asking for this couch is daylight robbery. [Mid-1900s] Also see highway robbery.

An outrageously high price. An appliance store advertises a refrigerators for $900, but you see ads for the same brand and model elsewhere for half that price. That store, you conclude, is committing daylight robbery, a “crime” so metaphorically blatant that it is being committed in broad daylight. That's not to be confused with “highway robbery.” “Daylight robbery” offers you the option of paying the money or not, but you don't have that choice in “highway robbery,” just as the victim of a stagecoach holdup had no choice. Your city raises property taxes. You receive the bill, take one look, and scream, “That's highway robbery!”