NEW kind of stereo / radio reset problem. help?!

Hi folks, I just got a 96 Jetta Trek today and the cassette player came in SAFE mode. So I searched the internet and found instructions on resetting it with the code. So I got my code and tried. No luck. I looked in my user manual and found a little card with directions and tried it. No luck.
Everything says to hold down Mode and Scan until "1000" shows. Well for me 1000 never displays. If i hold Mode and Scan for about 4 seconds then the word SAFE starts to blink. I thought maybe I needed to hold it down a little longer and after 3 minutes gave up.
The display simply blinks SAFE five or six times, then goes back to solidly saying SAFE, then a few seconds later it blinks again and the whole thing repeats over and over.
Any ideas or help?
Thanks

You have to remove the radio and remove the plugs and fuse for it to come back to 1000 mode.