Thank you for your clarification. I came to find out that this value (IN-STATUS) was in a copybook, and the definition was changed to PIC X(10). As a status value, it should be Pic X(02). When IN-STATUS is set to "00", then the statement IF IN-STATUS = ZERO returns true. It was my ignorance of the value of ZERO, and your pointing out the PIC X(N) idea that led to the solution.
Thanks a lot!