Using Freetds, PHP, SQL Server, ADODB and not being able to pass data that has certain special characters in UTF-8?

I am trying to pass data over to a Windows OS, into a SQL Server database. I am using Freetds to act as the provider since this is what it seems everyone uses to communicate with SQL Server from a Linux machine. I am using ADODB which is a Database Abstraction Library for PHP.

I am also developing a checkout system that allows a user to select any one of the hundreds of countries that exist as well as input the state or province of that country. I take all of this data and have to pass it over to a third party system, which is the SQL Server instance in which I talked about previously. The problem is, users are entering data with special characters for their states/countries such as ö.

It took me hours to find that it wasn't PHP, my application, my code as the special characters came out correctly at all points of the process even when debugging what was being passed to the stored procedure param in the adodb method. The problem was in FreeTDS as I found I needed to add the following line to my freetds. This appear to work and I was super happy that it actually wasn't my code and just a single line in the configuration file.

Upon further testing after my task was closed in Jira and I thought I would never have to worry about this again, I get the email saying hey this isn't working for Romanian states. So it appears that not all special characters are being passed correctly. An example of a state in Romania that doesn't work is?

I la o r? Spântie cu statui where I think it is the? Character that is the problem.

When running the query on SQL server it just converts that to an S. I have tried setting SET names UTF8 and a few others before doing the query but I think again the problem is before it even gets to the query freetds isn't passing over the correct character.