In Javascript two same looking strings are not equal?

I’m trying to compare two passwords , one from DB and other is user entered. The one from db is hashed and stored in binary format. So I have to conver it to string before comparing.

 console.log(
      user.PasswordHash.toString('base64') ===
        '$2a$10$UZptbo5h4lQFYmK352CPf.jDvPZh1pm3uC3Nb0wEVjF/RUCw2OU2G'
    ); //false

When I look in console user.PasswordHash.toString(‘base64’) evaluates to $2a$10$UZptbo5h4lQFYmK352CPf.jDvPZh1pm3uC3Nb0wEVjF/RUCw2OU2G which is the same value.

What is happening?

bcrypt.compareSync(
      password,
      user.PasswordHash.toString('base64')); //false

Any help is appreciated.