>I am having a problem with the UPPER() function

When comparing a string to a string, the comparison stops when the right side stops (or of course a mismatch occurs), like this:

'ABCDEFG' = 'ABC'

is compared like:

'a' = 'a' .t.
'ab' = 'ab' .t.
'abc' = 'abc' .t.

And it stops there because the right side is done. So 'abcd' = 'abc' but not vice versa. You'll want to use the == instead of = in this case, and you don't need Macro Expansion, it will slow you down.