Chipped Aluminum Casing on Brand New iPhone SE

Anyone else seen this before?

Just bought a brand new second generation iPhone SE, and right out of the box, there's a gash in the aluminum casing. Hard to photograph, but it runs pretty deep. Might've compromised the waterproof seal. On top of that, there's muddy fingerprints on the instructions. Normally I wouldn't be nearly so much of a snob, but given the fact that we're literally living in the midst of a global pandemic, it's pretty worrying. Quite frankly, I'm astonished this managed to slip past QC.

I guess this is what happens when you don't pay $150 for Apple Care eh? On the bright side though, at least I didn't pay for priority shipping to get sent a defective product!

I'm just wondering, is there any known way of getting this fixed? like I said, I didn't agree to get price gouged for Apple Care, so I'm not really sure whether or not I'm SOL here... Any help would be much appreciated