daylight robbery

noun

1. informal.
   blatant overcharging

Idioms and Phrases

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

Example Sentences

The embassy called Washington's behaviour "daylight robbery" and "gangster," demanding it provide a formal apology and compensation and arrest and extradite the raiders.

From Reuters

Julian and Sheila Kaufman, a couple from New York City, were victims of a daylight robbery in Dupont Circle earlier this month.

From Washington Times

When thieves pulled out a sharp blade to slice Willem de Kooning’s painting “Woman-Ochre” from its frame at Tucson’s University of Arizona Museum of Art in a daring, daylight robbery on the day after Thanksgiving in 1985, they likely expected the canvas to fall out into their waiting arms like a silk scarf slipping off bare shoulders.

From Los Angeles Times

"Over the years, all the wood used in the bridge had disintegrated and the iron had rusted. Thieves had stolen bits and pieces of the metal to put it to other use or sell it as scrap for a few rupees. But what happened last week was daylight robbery," he said.

From BBC

At the center is a daylight robbery that plucks $32 million from a bank — a modest haul compared with the $100 million Sean Connery was after in “The Rock” back in 1996, especially when you adjust for inflation.

From New York Times