arduino uno r3 cannot receive serial data from computor

i have created a program that receves data from the computor and displays it on an LCD screen however whatever data i sent from the computer comes up on the screen wrong or as zeros i thourgt it might be my programming however i changed the program so it sent back the data that it received and i looked at the out going data via 2 different terminals (the arduino one and termite via sparkfuns ftdi basic breakout) and they both showed exactly what came up on the lcd so is it a problem with the arduino uno. i have a deadline on this project so i would be great full if i could have information soon. thank you

Well, that was informative. (Hint)