You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression - powershell

Question

Not having much luck with my Powershell script, so any help would be great! What I'm trying to do is to reference from a test file that contains lines of usernames, and compare it to the Excel spreadsheet on column A1. If exists, it should blank out the username.
$users = Get-Content "E:\temp\test.txt"
foreach ($user in $users) {
set-aduser $user -fax " "
$answer1 = read-host "Please Make a Selection"
if ($answer1 -eq 1){
$location="Melbourne"
}
if ($answer1 -eq 2){
$location="Sydney"
}
if ($answer1 -eq 3){
$location="Adelaide"
}
if ($answer1 -eq 4){
$location="Brisbane"
}
if ($answer1 -eq 5){
$location="Perth"
}
$ExcelPath = 'E:\temp\FX MFD UserPIN.xlsx'
$Excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$Excel.Visible = $true
$ExcelWorkBook = $Excel.Workbooks.Open($ExcelPath)
$ExcelWorkSheet = $Excel.WorkSheets.item("$location")
$Range = $ExcelWorkSheet.Range("A1").EntireColumn
$Search = $Range.find($user)
If($Search.value() -contains $user)
{
Write-Host "User FOUND, removing now"
$Search.value() = ""
}
else {
Write-Host "User NOT FOUND"
}
}
Error code is this:
You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
At E:\temp\testsest.ps1:35 char:12
+ If($Search.value() -contains $SearchString)
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvokeMethodOnNull
How do I replace the $Search to get $user?

Answer 1

Range.Find() returns Nothing if no match is found.
Therefore, before you check if there is a match, you have to check if there's a null value in $Search.
if ($Search -ne $null) {
if ($Search.value -contains $user)
{
Write-Host "User FOUND, removing now"
$Search.value = ""
}
else {
Write-Host $Search.value," what did we find?!"
}
}
else {
Write-Host "User NOT FOUND"
}
Also, value is not a method, it's a property, so don't use round brackets.

Answer 2

Thanks Vesper. I've made a couple more changes and can confirm it works now.
if ($Search -ne $null) {
if ($Search.text -contains $user)
{
Write-Host "User FOUND, removing now"
$Range.replace($Search,"")
}
else {
Write-Host $Search.text," what did we find?!"
}
}
else {
Write-Host "User NOT FOUND"
}