diff --git a/pkg/common/types.go b/pkg/common/types.go
index 6c07d9c7..a0b47ba7 100644
--- a/pkg/common/types.go
+++ b/pkg/common/types.go
@@ -39,12 +39,16 @@ var ErrCurrencyNotAccepted = errors.New("currency not accepted")
 // contract until the platform persists a typed flag (platform #778).
 var ErrOutcomeUnknown = errors.New("purchase outcome unknown")
 
-// ErrRefusedBeforePurchase wraps any error from the approved-upfront check or
-// the purchase-count bounds check, both of which run before the purchase
-// request is built or sent. Its presence is
-// sufficient to know that this call sent no purchase request, but its absence
-// proves nothing: other refusals do not carry it. It describes only the call
-// that returned it and says nothing about earlier calls with the same
+// ErrRefusedBeforePurchase wraps an error from a check that refused the
+// purchase before the purchase request was built or sent. It says nothing
+// about why: the cause may be an offering upfront above the approved amount
+// (or one that cannot be compared with it), a count bound, a service-ownership
+// rule, or a duplicate-purchase guard, and retrying or asking for approval may
+// not help. Some producers wrap only the sentinel and carry the cause in the
+// message, so callers cannot rely on unwrapping to tell the causes apart. Its
+// presence is sufficient to know that this call sent no purchase request, but
+// its absence proves nothing: other refusals do not carry it. It describes only
+// the call that returned it and says nothing about earlier calls with the same
 // idempotency token. A wrapper that combines several purchase calls must not
 // propagate it unless none of them sent a request. Detect it with
 // errors.Is(err, ErrRefusedBeforePurchase).