Pumped to just get my new L14 today, unboxed and presto… missing a screw.
Really, straight from the box missing the center back screw??? Surely quality control exists enough to catch that. Has anyone seen this… am I paranoid to think someone tampered as it came across the US into Canada thru Customs???
Anti-interdiction is cheaper than getting a passport and plane ticket to pick up your order. Unless you plan to travel to California for vacation or visiting someone, you could pick up your order at same time. I could think of 4 possibilities for missing a screw and paranoid has to choose the worst case. Better to be paranoid than to be sorry, I guess.
I think you should work through it in a process.
First, work with Purism from a customer support perspective. I don’t know if they have anyway of confirming or validating any quality control steps they take before shipping each product. This is about customer service and Purism.
Second, concerns about possible tampering. Yes, the anti-interdiction service is nice, but obviously it is now after the fact, so that advise isn’t the most helpful. I would say, Purism, does provide photos and diagrams I think of their hardware? At least for the L5. they might for the L14. If you are so inclined you can remove the back cover and compare your hardware to Purism specs.
Could your device have been tampered with? that is always a possibility. You would want to look at your own situation, is there anything about you / lifestyle, etc that authorities would want to tamper with your equipment?
At the end of the day, I think it comes down to 2 paths - Are you concerned about:
quality control of your new product?
or, are you more concerned about potential tampering?
The first question can be handled through Purism. If the second is a concern, and you aren’t up for opening up the hardware and inspecting, etc. then I would say, see if you can work with Purism, to return / exchange the laptop and use anti-interdiction service on the replacement.
Yes. If your government were tampering with your laptop then there would be no screw missing. 
You could contact Purism support and ask them to send some spare screws.
PS Your title is a bit confusing. I read it initially as that all the screws were missing.
Actually that’s a great point on they would not make it that obvious, LoL… unless they just wanted to “toy” with me!
Yeah, the quality is certainly a surprise and to @irvinewade reply, it’s not likely they would make it so obvious if they had tampered. I had considered the anti-interdiction when I purchased, so I’m also a little irked at myself for not paying for that “peace of mind”.
I think Purism is under pressure to ship every new batch as fast as possible. I’ve got few missing screws on my L14 too. I wrote to support and they sent me set of screws.
