String comparison functions are not working properly - vba

Question

So I have a program that I have three groups of users, and I am storing user names, permission levels, usernames and passwords in a veryhidden/protected sheet. (Yes I know this is not particularly secure but it is not to prevent malintent it simply will avoid people stumbling upon things they shouldnt. Nobody is going to be able to uncover very hidden sheets or get into the code.)
The function below is what I have been using. The for each loop is going into the users sheet and finding the username, but for some reason it says that the password is wrong no matter what. I do not know a ton about string comparison and I suspect that one of my conversions or the way I am comparing the passwords is not doing it's job. I have tweaked this a bunch of different ways, but I am missing something basic I think.
Function getSecurityLevel(user As String, pw As String) As Single
Dim userNames As Range
Dim thisUser As Range
Dim uName
Dim userWS As Worksheet
Set userWS = Worksheets("Users")
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Module4.unprotectUsers
Set userNames = userWS.ListObjects("userTable").ListColumns(3).DataBodyRange
For Each thisUser In userNames
If LCase(CStr(thisUser.Text)) = LCase(user) Then
uName = thisUser.Address
Range(uName).Offset(0, 1).Select
If CStr(ActiveCell.Text) <> pw Then
MsgBox "Your password is incorrect", vbOKOnly
Exit For
Else
ActiveCell.Offset(0, 1).Select
getSecurityLevel = ActiveCell.Value
Exit For
End If
End If
Next thisUser
Module4.hideAll
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
MsgBox "Your username could not be found, please try again", vbOKOnly
End Function
I just need it to properly compare the input password from the userform to the cell next to the matching username, then offset one more and read the security level

Answer 1

This isn't the answer you want but you need to know this.
"Nobody is going to be able to uncover very hidden sheets or get into the code." That is a bold statement and also very untrue.
Setting aside the fact that password protection offered by the VB editor is easily broken.
Anyone with access to the file can change the extension to ZIP. From there, everyone's password is visible as plain text in xl\sharedstrings.xml and your vaunted very hidden worksheet is plainly visible in the file structure and can be unhidden by removing state="veryHidden" in xl\workbook.xml then rezipping and replacing ZIP with the appropriate Excel extension.
Do your users a favor. If you're not going to encrypt passwords and insist on storing them as plain text - then at the very least, do not save them in a file that is distributed to all of your users.
What happens if that file is sent to someone outside the organization or if anyone in your company caught whiff of you sending unencrypted passwords to your users... Think man! This is not the way forward!!!