Mutt failes to use cram5 password from .muttrc properly

[Ilya]

 Hi, i have changed my password, now it containe some SHIFT-key characters
 and mutt cant use the .muttrc file anymore, each time i am being asked for
 CRAM key to be put in, i put exactly same cram as i have set in
imap_cramkey
 (actually even pasting it) and everything works fine. it authenticates
 through CRAM and loads mailbox. but no matter what i set it in .muttrc - it
 doesnt go through
 I use Mutt 1.2.5i (2000-07-28) on FreeBSD with Cyrus IMAP