Forums Connection Issues weirdness

I'm not sure exactly in which category I should post this.

A friend has been having problems with dcc chat & send,
when he tries to initiate a dcc chat with me, I get ..

DCC Chat from <nick> rejected (invalid parameters)

Using debug, this is what I saw ..
<- :nick!user@host NOTICE <my nick> : DCC Chat (<his ip>)
<- ::nick!user@host PRIVMSG <my nick> :
DCC CHAT chat |¢NRhi


From anyone else, including myself, I get this ..
<- :nick!user@host NOTICE <my nick> : DCC Chat (<ip>)
<- ::nick!user@host PRIVMSG <my nick> :
DCC CHAT chat <long ip> <port>


What would change <long ip> <port> into |¢NRhi ?
I was thinking his router or something was changing it, so I had him try this ..
/raw privmsg <my nick> :
DCC CHAT chat <long ip> <port>


He said ..
<his nick> i see this
<his nick> -> Server: privmsg <my nick> :
DCC CHAT chat |¢NRhi


So I thought, well it's changing before it even gets sent so
it must be a bug with mIRC, so I was going to post this in
Bug Reports, but then he removed the router and initiated
dcc chat with me, it connected, and I saw ..
<- :nick!user@host NOTICE <my nick> : DCC Chat (<ip>)
<- ::nick!user@host PRIVMSG <my nick> :
DCC CHAT chat <long ip> <port>


So I had him try /raw again, he said ..
<his nick> i saw this
<his nick> -> Server: privmsg <my nick> :
DCC CHAT chat <long ip> <port>


Any clues as to why this is happening?

Edit: I searched and read through many posts but didn't find anything like this.