How do I send control characters to the printer???

How do I open a cash drawer conected to a paralell port from VB.
The cash draw is an MMF and it is connected to a EPSON TM-Series printer.
The caracters sequence is :

ESC + "p" + Chr$(0) + Chr$(25) + Chr$(250)

I tested the sequence from DOS and it works fine, but from VB it prints garbage.

Please, help me ASAP!!!

The ascii value for escape is 27. Did you try using that?

Chr$(27) + "p" + Chr$(0) + Chr$(25) + Chr$(250)

Yes, I did, but it didn`t work