Ace report select statement trbl

I'm having a problem with a portion of a select statement in writing an ace report in Online 5.0. I'm letting the user specify a field but when he chooses * for all I want to keep one element of that field from appearing. My statement reads where message_type = $message_type and message_type != "DTA*" In going thru the Informix SQL User's Guide and Programming Informix SQL by Cathy Kipp, I can't find anything that says I can't do this but when I run it, my results always include the DTA... elements. Could someone tell me where I'm going wrong? Your time and effort on my behalf is greatly appreciated Thanks Hammer