Watkins

*1075 Sue Watkins defaulted on a credit card she opened through Citibank. As is common practice in the industry, Citibank charged off the debt, 1 stopped accruing interest or sending monthly statements, and eventually sold the account to a third party debt collection agency, Cavalry SPV I, *1076 LLC (Cavalry). Cavalry then added prejudgment interest from the date of charge-off and attempted to collect the debt through an associated entity, Cavalry Portfolio Services, LLC (CPS). As part of its collection efforts, CPS reported the debt with the additional interest included to several credit reporting agencies.

Watkins disputed the debt and did not pay it, Cavalry sued to collect, and Watkins filed a cross-complaint alleging violations of the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the Rosenthal Act; Civ. Code, § 1788 et seq. ) 2 and other associated statutes governing debt collection practices. The superior court conducted a bench trial, rejected the claims in Watkins's *340 cross-complaint, and entered a judgment in favor of Cavalry in the amount of the original debt, plus attorney fees. After the parties submitted additional briefing regarding the fees, the court awarded…