Not my ass on the line and not a major burn, but still: I got an email many years ago from a guy who said essentially 'I got your email address from <guy we both know>, are you interested in picking up some side work and if so, can we meet'. I say okay and when we meet, he explains that they had this SaaS idea (an industry-specific collaboration/data sharing tool essentially; this company did other work in this industry, they weren't a software shop but saw an opportunity and wanted to branch out) and they contracted it out to a largish 'web agency' as that was called back then in the area. They had delivered a mostly working product, developed using their own 'framework' (as everybody and their dog has).

But now of course it needed maintenance as well as some additional features (software of course is never done). That web agency had said though 'well these small contracts aren't really worth our time - we delivered what you asked, if you want small work on top of it, we have to charge you ridiculous rates'. So now this guy was looking for someone who could do some occasional work on it every few weeks, for a (for that time) complex web application, written in an undocumented proprietary framework. Yeah good luck with that, I politely declined, after explaining the situation - from the look on the guy's face, he only then and there fully realized the position this 'web agency' had put him in.

Heard from the guy we both knew months later that they were still looking, and after a year or two the product disappeared from their website. Not sure if it was the tech that took it under, but I never quite understand how companies think they can completely outsource the whole workings of a product they intend to offer, without even having someone on their own team who understands that product.