futbol, I found your posts about refunds. They are in this thread:
http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/topics/54567/all

In your case, you phoned in to cancel, and I'l bet the Inyo person somehow got rec.gov to do the refund. Sounds like they have that option now. Other refunds appear to be returned due to trails being closed due to COVID or shutdowns.

So we need to try to get Inyo to change the policy so online cancellations get some sort of a refund. That would spring loose a bunch of permits for people to pick up during the hiking season.