Continuing saga, I have ordered another from a different on-line music site.  Hopefully this will put it to bed.  However, Murphy's Law always applies. 
 
 

You might have gotten what I call a "Saturday Night Special". That's where an employee of the store you bought the interface from does a friend a favor and "sells" an interface for short term usage, like a Saturday night gig and then takes it as a return, shrink wraps it back up and sells it new. The worst case of this is where the person swaps the guts out with a defective or older version that he already owns. Happens all the time and few people take the time to match up the stickers on the box with the burned in serial number etc. Fingerprints happen because sometimes the person at the factory isn't wearing the gloves they usually wear. Rack rash is another thing though. You should NEVER see that on a new piece of gear, obviously.
I'd send it back, get a refund and purchase elsewhere.
 
I buy from the same handful of retailers and they know up front, because I tell them when I order, that I do not want a repack and if I even suspect the unit is repacked, it will be returned and I will never buy from them again.
 
This is nothing new BTW.
It's been going on in this business for decades.
 
 
 

Steve, if you read my posts you will see I have done exactly what you say.
1.  Send unit back and get refund.
2.  Purchase elsewhere.
3.  I will no longer do business with this company.
 
 

Good for you fireberd!
If more people refused to accept gear that has obviously been tampered with these companies would learn that it does no good to try and trick or take advantage of the consumer.

steveo42
You might have gotten what I call a "Saturday Night Special". That's where an employee of the store you bought the interface from does a friend a favor and "sells" an interface for short term usage, like a Saturday night gig and then takes it as a return, shrink wraps it back up and sells it new. The worst case of this is where the person swaps the guts out with a defective or older version that he already owns. Happens all the time and few people take the time to match up the stickers on the box with the burned in serial number etc. Fingerprints happen because sometimes the person at the factory isn't wearing the gloves they usually wear. Rack rash is another thing though. You should NEVER see that on a new piece of gear, obviously.
I'd send it back, get a refund and purchase elsewhere.
 
I buy from the same handful of retailers and they know up front, because I tell them when I order, that I do not want a repack and if I even suspect the unit is repacked, it will be returned and I will never buy from them again.
 
This is nothing new BTW.
It's been going on in this business for decades.

Happens with more than electronic gear. Many years ago, there was a 6-story parking garage on Rush St. in Chicago. It was too small to have ramps, so it had car elevators. You checked your car in and they parked and retrieved it for you. Well, one day, a guy gets his new Corvette back, and makes it all of about 2 blocks before the engine fell on the street. Turns out, when you checked the car in, if you told them you were going to be parked for several hours, and the car was on their 'list', they would swap out the new engine for an old POS. They'd been doing it for years and getting away with it, but that time, they forget to put the engine bolts back in. Oops.

End of Rant.
 
NEW MOTU 896Mk3 Hybrid received from M/F today.  Checked out and working OK, and no scratches.
 
However, still waiting for refund from the NYC company.

My gear suffers. I'm never super interested in a scuff. I like the warranty though. And I like it to work properly.

When spending a chunk of change, I'm often in a hurry to make sure it does work. I had an interface that sounded beautiful until the first driver and firmware update and then it stopped working. It was the first generation of the newly released interface.

I worked with tech support from the company for a month before returning the interface. It may have been the FireWire interface in my laptop but it was just so weird that it worked and then didn't. The company was bummed that I returned it. They were still trying for the fix. But a month is a long time to tie up a grand for something that doesn't work.

fireberd
I bought an MOTU 896mk3 Hybrid, new, on line.  After working with it and getting confused with their control program I sent it back and got a different brand of equal price.  The different brand only lasted one day and the power on/off function went bad (it would not power off).  During that time I ran into a person at Guitar Center that used MOTU and he offered to show me how the MOTU Cue Mix FX program worked.  Had I had that training before hand the MOTU would not have been sent back.  Fast forward to the second 896mk3 Hybrid (replacement for the unit that the power function failed).  It was "factory sealed" both on the box and internally, however it had some scuff marks on the case and looked like a rack screw mark.  I powered it up and checked it out and all appeared to be working OK.  Closer inspection reveals there are marks inside the plastic screen for the Cuemix display (two white dots and one smudge).  I contacted MOTU and was told to contact the seller for a replacement, they won't do anything about it (and wouldn't comment on it potentially being a refurb or possibly a demo).  I now have an RMA from the seller and will be shipping it back and hopefully the replacement will be new (and works).   I don't  blame the seller, since the packaging suggested it was "factory sealed".
 
I'll use the replacement but MOTU is off my buy list for any future purchase.
 
End of rant.
 
 

I don't trust GC anymore. Is that where you bought it?

No.  It was a site in NYC.
 
The replacement was purchased from M/F, which is owned by GC.  Came in new and works perfectly.