I suspect the issue is that your editors have used a similar character from the Symbols font set, probably via Insert|Symbol. Although using AscW usually returns an accurate Unicode value for a character, Word can't tell which characters are in some symbol fonts - some may not even have a representation in Unicode. So Word uses code page values above &HF000 (a "private use" range programs can use for their own purposes) for them. Another problem is that Word protects symbols from symbol fonts that users have inserted from "Insert > Symbol" against changes (so they don't get messed up if you change the font or style). The end result is that Word won't readily tell you what font was used, and AscW will report a code of 40 = "(".
The following macro will unlock all such characters so you can get at them via Find/Replace.
Code:
Sub SymbolsUnprotect()
Dim StrFnt As String, CharVal As Long
With ActiveDocument.Range
With .Find
.Text = "[" & ChrW(61472) & "-" & ChrW(61695) & "]"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
.Format = False
.MatchWildcards = True
.Execute
End With
Do While .Find.Found
With Dialogs(wdDialogInsertSymbol)
StrFnt = .Font
CharVal = .CharNum
End With
.Font.Name = StrFnt
.Text = ChrW(CharVal)
.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
.Find.Execute
Loop
End With
End Sub
Of course, you'll still have to specify the characters via their unlocked values for the Find. After running the above macro, you can do that by copying the character and pasting it into the Find textbox.