diff -ru gaim-0.82.1.orig/src/protocols/oscar/oscar.c gaim-0.82.1/src/protocols/oscar/oscar.c
--- gaim-0.82.1.orig/src/protocols/oscar/oscar.c	2004-08-26 03:29:00.000000000 +0200
+++ gaim-0.82.1/src/protocols/oscar/oscar.c	2004-09-13 02:24:47.232718752 +0200
@@ -449,7 +449,12 @@
 			ret = g_strndup(data, datalen);
 		} else {
 			gaim_debug_warning("oscar", "Received invalid UTF-8.\n");
-			ret = g_strdup(_("(There was an error receiving this message)"));
+			charsetstr = gaim_account_get_string(account, "encoding", OSCAR_DEFAULT_CUSTOM_ENCODING);
+			ret = g_convert(data, datalen, "UTF-8", charsetstr, NULL, NULL, NULL);
+			if (ret == NULL) {
+			    gaim_debug_warning("oscar", "Received also invalid %s.\n", charsetstr);
+			    ret = g_strdup(_("(There was an error receiving this message)"));
+			}
 		}
 	}