diff --git a/pkg/issuer/acme/dns/route53/route53.go b/pkg/issuer/acme/dns/route53/route53.go
index 36c9a2c03..8213077ea 100644
--- a/pkg/issuer/acme/dns/route53/route53.go
+++ b/pkg/issuer/acme/dns/route53/route53.go
@@ -292,7 +292,10 @@ func newTXTRecordSet(fqdn, value string, ttl int) *route53types.ResourceRecordSe
 // avoid spurious challenge updates.
 //
 // The given error must not be nil. This function must be called everywhere
-// we have a non-nil error coming from an aws-sdk-go func.
+// we have a non-nil error coming from an aws-sdk-go func. The passed error
+// is modified in place. This function does not work in case the full error
+// message is pre-generated at construction time (instead of when Error() is
+// called), which is the case for eg. fmt.Errorf("error message: %w", err).
 func removeReqID(err error) error {
 	var responseError *awshttp.ResponseError
 	if errors.As(err, &responseError) {