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To prevent encoded characters in a SOAP web service, here are some recommendations:

1. Use a standard message encoding: SOAP messages are usually encoded using XML, which has its own set of rules regarding permitted characters. By sticking to a standard message encoding, you can avoid any conflicts with different character sets.

2. Sanitize input data: Make sure your SOAP web service code sanitizes any input data by removing characters that might cause problems. You can use regular expressions to strip out any potentially harmful characters.

3. Use XML entities: Instead of encoding special characters, you can use XML entities to represent them. For instance, the "less than" and "greater than" signs can be represented by the entities "<" and ">". Similarly, the ampersand can be represented by "&".

4. Validate input data: Before processing any input data, validate it to ensure that it conforms to your expected format. This step will catch any unexpected characters in the data and prevent your SOAP service from processing them incorrectly.

5. Use proper encoding headers: When sending data over a network, make sure to use the proper encoding headers so that the data can be interpreted correctly. For instance, if you're sending UTF-8 data, include a header that specifies the encoding as UTF-8.

By following these best practices, you can prevent encoded characters from causing issues in your SOAP web service.