SaltyMax, as a long time member let me just say you are not alone in your experience. Many others have had the same experience, newby or not. Yet, there are always those on this forum who are more buddy, buddy with Dan who will come to his defense. Do I believe you will get your rod? Eventually. Is communication lacking from Tackle Now, definitely. Has it changed over the years? Nope. You can find plenty of complaints about this very thing.
At least he didn’t change your order on you and ship you something you didn’t order with a note saying he’d make it up to you, which, of course, never happened. Plenty of guys on this forum who won’t buy from Tackle Now because of this very thing. They’d rather buy from overseas. They are just not chiming in here.
Sad thing is this could be remedied very easily by just responding to emails, texts, etc. in a timely manner rather than leaving you hanging.