The permissions for new files do default to 777 and 666 (for directories and files, respectively) with umask removed.
The RHEL default is that umask is 002, if effective groupname is equal to username. Others (and root) get 022.
The RHEL default is that the primary group of account (and hence usually the effective) has same name as the account. The private group. Hence those users create files with 775 and 664 (and in setgid directory 2775 and 664).
The scp is no longer recommended, because it has some security issues. The sftp and rsync are better.
Did the copied files get the ACLs? Didn’t you have ACL to override the group’s permissions with g+rw?
PS. Read about permission X from man chmod. It helps as one does not have to chmod directories and files separately (for executability).