diff --git a/geoip.c b/geoip.c
index 085f6e1..f497298 100644
--- a/geoip.c
+++ b/geoip.c
@@ -43,6 +43,10 @@ void rb_hash_sset(VALUE hash, const char *str, VALUE v) {
 /*  pulled from http://blog.inventic.eu/?p=238 and
     https://github.com/Vagabond/erlang-iconv/blob/master/c_src/iconv_drv.c */
 static VALUE encode_to_utf8_and_return_rb_str(char *value) {
+  if (value == NULL) {
+    return Qnil;
+  }
+
   char dst[BUFSIZ];
   size_t srclen = strlen(value);
   size_t dstlen = srclen * 2;