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!”