Get user name - web services throws error if a name has special character

Question

I am calling UserProfileService.asmx web service and using GetUserPropertyByAccountName. The method works for almost everyone except for those who has special characters in the Preferred Name. How do I fix this? We are having serious production issues and
would like to know how to fix the issue.
User: domain\aberg returns name as the name does not have any special characters. Arthur Berg
User: domain\jobill returns following error because this use has a dash in the last name. Joe O-Bill
User: domain\mobrien returns following error because this use has a dash in the last name. Mark O'Brien
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<soap:Body>
<soap:Fault>
<faultcode>soap:Client</faultcode>
<faultstring>A user with the account name DOMAIN\jobill could not be found. ---&gt; An error was encountered while retrieving the user profile.</faultstring>
<detail>
<ErrorCode xmlns="http://microsoft.com/webservices/SharePointPortalServer/UserProfileService">UserCannotBeFound</ErrorCode>
<ErrorMessage xmlns="http://microsoft.com/webservices/SharePointPortalServer/UserProfileService">An error was encountered while retrieving the user profile.</ErrorMessage>
</detail>
</soap:Fault>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
I am using codeplex tool "web service studio 2.0" to verify this.

Answer 1

I have NO clue what is going on. When I go to user profile from Central Admin the user account is domainxp.net\username. But when I pull up the user using address bar (say in edit form) I see domain\usename. Could this be confusing the workflow which is
calling the web services?
I ran the following powershell and after few minutes it starting to resolve the user name without any errors. I like to know what is going on here. Problem is solved for now but I wont be surprise if I see the same problem after doing a Full AD sync.
$adUser = "domain\user"
$siteCollection = "http://local.site/sales"
Set-SPUser -Identity $adUser -Web $siteCollection -SyncFromAD
Thanks
Brooke