We show by counterexample that one of the main results in the paper "The Steiner number of a graph" by Chartrand and Zhang (Disc. Math. 242 (2002) 41-54) does not hold. To be more precise, we prove both that not every Steiner set is a geodetic set and that there are connected graphs whose Steiner number is strictly lower than its geodetic number. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.